

Class. 
Book a 




Copyright N° 4?^/ Z * 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 















































’ 
















; 





































, . 


























































. 








































I 8 HI - • 















FROM 


Clue to Climax. 

* ) 



AUTHOR OF “WHITE MARIE,” “ALMOST PERSUADED,” “A MUTE CONFESSOR,” 
“THE LAND OF THE CHANGING SUN,” ETC. 



,f *»*s 


' MAY 521896 





PHILADELPHIA: 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 


TZ.3 

. H Z 13 


Copyright, 1896, by J. B. Lippincott Company. 


Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, U.S.A. 


LIPPINCOTT'S 

MONTHLY M agazine - 

JUNE, 1896. 

FROM CLUE -TO CLIMAX. 


CHAPTER I. 

HE milkman left a can of milk on the front veranda and drove on 
to the next house in the street. The iceman came along half an 
hour later, looked curiously at the closed door, as he unfastened the 
hooks from a block of ice, and rapped loudly on the step, but no one 
came to answer his call. 

An hour later a young man sleeping in the front room down-stairs 
awoke suddenly and sat up in bed. He was astonished to note that 
the sunlight on the carpet extended from the window far into the room, 
indicating that the sun had risen above the tall buildings across the 
street. He felt a strange heaviness in his head, and a desire to lie 
down again, but he shook off the feeling, and rose and began to dress. 

What could be the matter? The little clock on his dressing-case 
pointed to ten. What had caused him to oversleep? Why had Mr. 
Strong not waked him as usual? The old man was always up with 
the sun, and had never allowed him to sleep later than eight. 

The young man hurriedly put on his trousers, thrust his feet into 
his slippers, and drew aside the portiere that hung between his room 
and his uncle’s. Strong’s bed was in the right-hand corner of the 
room, and Whidby could see the back part of his head and one side 
of his gray whiskers. 

Whidby called to him softly, but Strong did not stir. Whidby 
called again, and stamped his foot, but still the old man remained 
motionless. 

“ That’s queer,” murmured Whidby, as he approached the bed. 
Strong’s face was towards the window ; his eyes were open ; a ghastly 
smile was on his face. He was dead. Whidby saw that by the awful 
pallor of his face, which made each hair of the beard stand out as if 
under a magnifying glass. For a moment Whidby stood as if turned 

739 


740 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


to stone ; then he drew down the sheet, which had been drawn up 
closely under the old man’s chin, and saw the long deep gash in the 
throat and the dark clots of the blood which had soaked into the 
mattress. 

Whidby was strangely calm. In an instant he had decided on a 
course of action. He stepped to the telephone across the room, and 
looked over the directory ; then he rang, and held the receiver to his 
ear. 

“ Hello,” he said, “that’s the central office, isn’t it? Well, all 
right ; one seventy-six on four eighty-two, please.” 

“ Well, what is it?” presently came from the telephone. 

“ Is that Police Head-Quarters ?” 

“Yes.” 

“I am Alfred Whidby, 278 Leighton Avenue. A horrible thing 
has occurred here during the night. I have just discovered that 
my uncle, Mr. Strong, — Richard N. Strong, the banker, — has been 
murdered. Come and attend to it.” 

There was a silence, broken by a low, indistinct murmuring as if 
people were talking at the other end of the wire ; then the reply came : 

“ All right ; as soon as we can get there.” 

Then Whidby hung up the receiver, and rang the bell. He went 
back into his room, put on his shirt, collar, and necktie, and brushed 
his hair. His head still felt heavy and ached a little. The electric 
cars were whirring past the house, and a blind man was playing an 
accordion a few doors away. There was a crunching step on the 
gravelled walk near his window : Whidby raised the sash and looked 
out. It was Matthews, the gardener. 

Seeing Whidby, he touched his hat, stopped, and asked after Mr. 
Strong. Whidby made no reply, but sat down on the window-sill and 
stared at the old man. He was wondering if the police would prefer 
for him to keep the news from the gardener. It was the look of slow 
astonishment coming into Matthews’s eyes that made him decide what 
to say. 

“ Matthews,” he said, “ something has happened ; I can tell you 
that much, but that is all. I have telephoned the police ; you’d better 
not come in till they get here. If I were you I’d go on with my 
work : the rose-bushes near the fountain need trimming.” 

Matthews stared and started to speak, but Whidby withdrew, sat 
down on the side of his bed, and tried to collect his thoughts. Sud- 
denly he was roused by a sharp ring at the door-bell. Whidby’s heart 
sank, and he was all in a quiver, but he rose calmly and went to the 
door. It was a boy with the morning paper. He held also a bill in 
his hand, and wanted to collect the money due to him for delivering 
the paper for the month past, but Whidby sent him away, and stood 
for several minutes in the door-way watching the crowd passing in 
the street. Then he closed the door, and went into his uncle’s room 
and walked restlessly to and fro at the foot of the bed. Suddenly he 
stopped at the telephone and rang the bell. 

“ One seventy-five on four eighty-two, please,” he said. 

“ Hello there,” was the reply. 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


741 


“Well?” asked Whidby. 

“ You are one seventy-six instead of one seventy-five, aren’t you?” 

“ Yes. Did I say one seventy-five ? I meant one seventy-six.” 

“ All right ; there you are, Mr. Whidby.” 

“ Whidby !” thought the young man. “ I wonder how he knew 
my name. Ah, he must have overheard me speaking to the police.” 

The bell rang. 

“ Hello,” said Whidby. “Is that Police Head-Quarters?” 

“Yes. What is it?” 

“ This is Alfred Whidby, 278 Leighton Avenue ” 

“ I know ; but what is wrong now ?” 

“ I telephoned you about the murder up here. Aren’t you going 
to send some one to see about it ?” 

“ That was only a few minutes ago, Mr. Whidby, and it is over 
two miles. Captain Welsh has just left with Mr. Minard Hendricks, 
the famous New York detective, who happens to be in town.” 

“ Ah, I see,” said Whidby : “ the time drags with me, you know. 
I am all alone.” 

“ I understand. Good-by.” 

“ Good-by.” 

The young man turned and walked round the bed for another look 
at Strong’s face. Surely, he thought, that weird smile and the twinkle 
in the dead man’s eyes were the most remarkable things ever connected 
with a murder case. He could not bear to look at the face, so he went 
into his own room. He wondered what had caused him to oversleep. 
He went to his bed and smelt the pillows to see if he could detect traces 
of chloroform. He had decided that he could not have been drugged, 
when the bell of a passing car caught his ear. He knew that the car 
had stopped in front of the house by the whirring, chromatic sound as 
it started on again. Then he heard steps on the veranda and went to 
the door. 


CHAPTER II. 

It was Captain Welsh, the Chief of Police, and Mr. Minard 
Hendricks, the detective from New York. The latter scarcely nodded 
when he was introduced to Whidby. His sharp, gray eyes, under 
massive, shaggy brows, rested on the key which he had just heard 
Whidby turn in the lock. 

“Has no one been out at this door this morning?” he asked, 
abruptly. 

“ No,” stammered Whidby, — “ yes ; that is, I came to answer the 
ring of a newsboy a moment ago.” 

“ And you locked the door after he left ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Why did you do it ?” The detective’s eyes were roving about 
the veranda, hall, and yard, but his tone sounded sharp and to the 
point. Whidby felt that he was waiting for a reply. 

“ I don’t know,” replied the young man, helplessly. “ I suppose I 


742 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


was excited, and it seemed to me that it would be best to keep curious 
people out till you came.” 

“Certainly,” remarked Captain Welsh; but the detective went on 
with a frown : 

“ Was the door unlocked when you opened it for the newsboy?” 

“ I — I’m afraid I can’t remember,” answered Whidby. 

“ That is unfortunate,” said Hendricks. “ Where is the body?” 

“ This way,” replied Whidby. “ The second door on the right.” 

The detective opened the door, and the others followed him to the 
bed. He looked long and silently at the face of the dead man ; then 
he said, “Has any one touched this sheet since you discovered the 
murder ?” 

“I drew it down to see where he was wounded. If I had 
thought ” 

“ No matter,” replied the detective, and he lifted the sheet and 
examined the gash. Then he replaced it carefully, and asked, “ How 
was the sheet arranged when you found him?” 

“Just as it is now, I think,” said Whidby. “Just as if the mur- 
derer had replaced it with both hands, one on each side, as you did.” 

“ Stand where you are,” Hendricks suddenly ordered. He raised 
the window-shade, went down on hands and knees, and made a 
minute examination of the carpet. Then he rose and surveyed the 
room. “Where did you sleep?” he asked. 

Whidby pointed to the portiere. “ In that room.” 

The detective drew the heavy curtains aside. 

“You came through here this morning?” he asked. 

“Yes.” 

Hendricks looked at Whidby’s bed. “Slept later this morning 
than usual, eh?” he asked. 

“ Yes ; I don’t know what was the matter with me. I felt heavy- 
headed and dizzy when I awoke.” 

Captain Welsh nodded knowingly, but said nothing. 

“ You telephoned as soon as you discovered the body ?” Hendricks 
went on. 

“Yes.” 

“ Where do you get your meals?” 

“ Here, usually ; but to-day the cook is away on leave of absence. 
Uncle and I were going over to the Randolph, the restaurant on the 
corner, for our meals till she returned.” 

“ Have you eaten anything this morning ?” 

“ No.” 

“ Well, you’d better go : we’ll look after everything and telephone 
the coroner.” 

“ All right,” replied Whidby. He turned to the wash-stand and 
filled a basin from a pitcher of water. “ In my excitement I forgot to 
wash my face and hands.” 

“ Stop !” cried Hendricks, and he caught Whidby’s arm as his 
hands were almost in the water. “Pardon me, but you’ve stained 
your fingers somehow.” 

The young man stared at his right hand in surprise. There was a 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


743 


faint red smudge on the thumb and fingers. “Why,” he said, “I 

don’t see how it could have got there, unless I wonder if ” 

Whidby turned quickly into the other room and bent over Strong’s 
bed. “ Ah,” he cried to the others. “ See ! I must have got it from 
the corner of the sheet when I put it back ; you see there is blood on 
the under side.” 

The detective had followed Whidby no further than the portiere, 
where he stood indifferently watching the young man’s movements. 

“ Yes, from the sheet or this curtain,” he replied, pointing to an 
almost invisible spot of blood on the portiere. 

“ Then the fellow must have been in my room too,” said Whidby, 
wonderingly. 

“ And just after the deed was done,” Hendricks remarked. 

The young man stared at the detective curiously as he returned to 
the wash-stand and took off his coat. “ Look,” he cried to him, “ here 
is some of it on my cuff.” 

“ I noticed that,” replied the detective. “ It is a drop of blood. 
Perhaps you had better detach the cuff and give it to me. You did 
not sleep in that shirt ?” 

“ No.” Whidby gave him the cuff. 

“ Where did you lay the shirt last night when you took it off?” 

“ On that chair near my bed,” answered Whidby. 

“ That’s all you can do for us,” said Hendricks. “ You’d better 
go to breakfast.” 

Whidby crossed the street and entered the restaurant on the corner. 
He took a seat at the table the farthest from the door, and ordered 
some eggs, coffee, rolls, and butter ; but he found that he had no appe- 
tite, and he drank his coffee when it was so hot that it burnt his lips. 
Then he bought a newspaper, and sat for ten minutes gazing at it 
absently. 

On his return home he found the yard filled with a crowd of 
curious people. Some of them stood on the veranda near the windows. 
The door was closed. Whidby tried the knob, but it was locked. 
Turning, he saw Matthews coming round the corner of the house. 

“ Captain Welsh asked me to send you in at the rear door,” the man 
said. “ They’re goin’ to hold a inquest on ’im.” 

WTiidby followed the gardener into the house. How he disliked 
to see the body again, and the strange smile on the dead man’s face ! 
But there was no help for it. He must do what he could towards bring- 
ing the criminal to justice. 

The atmosphere of Strong’s room was so close that Whidby could 
hardly breathe, and the perfume from the conservatory sickened him. 
The coroner and jury had arrived. Indeed, they seemed to be waiting 
for him. He sat down near a window. He wondered what they would 
ask him, and if he could make intelligent replies. 

The coroner opened the proceedings with a few words to the jury, 
and Whidby thought they stared at him furtively whenever his name 
was mentioned. Then his testimony was called for, and Whidby felt 
that he was repeating word for word the account he had given Hen- 
dricks a short while before. 


744 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX 


The detective rose next and told in careful detail how the police 
had been called to the telephone by Whidby and first informed of the 
murder ; how the young man had met him and Welsh at the door, and 
what was said about whether the door was locked. He spoke of the 
blood-stain on Wliidby’s hand, and produced the cuff with the drop 
of blood on it. It was his opinion, he said, that the cuff could not 
have been worn at the time it received the drop, nor for at least half 
an hour afterwards, for, as the jury could see, the blood had dried in 
such a shape as to prove that it had remained motionless for some 
time. Mr. Whidby had said that the shirt with the cuff attached had 
lain on a chair near his bed all night. 

Then the coroner called for Whidby’s night-shirt, and the jury 
passed it from one to the other and examined it carefully. At that 
moment Whidby rose to call attention to the blood on the portiere, and 
on the corner of the sheet, which he thought Hendricks and Captain 
Welsh had forgotten to mention, but the coroner ordered him, rather 
coldly, to sit down. 

Matthews was next called, but he could testify to nothing except 
that he slept in the cottage behind the house and had not waked during 
the night. Then the coroner requested Whidby and Matthews to leave 
the room, and Whidby went into the library across the hall and closed 
the door behind him. 

He sat down and tried to collect his thoughts, but it was impossible. 
Half an hour went by. He heard the jury tramp through the hall, cross 
the veranda, and go out at the gate. Then Matthews rapped on the door. 

“ Come in,” said Whidby. 

“ Two undertakers are waitin’ outside, sir,” said the servant. “ They 
both want the job. I tol’ ’em I’d see you about it.” 

“ Use your judgment ; engage one of them. I can’t attend to it.” 
Whidby called to the old man as he was closing the door. “ What was 
the verdict of the jury?” he asked. 

“ Met his death by the hand of some person unknown, sir. They 
called me back to open the windows, and I stayed.” 

“ Ah, you remained in there.” 

Matthews opened the door a little wider and stood in the opening. 
“ Your name came up mighty often, sir, after you went out.” 

“ My name? what did they say about me?” 

“ I didn’t catch it all, sir, but the detective mentioned the stain on 
your hand and said it no doubt came from the sheet or from the cur- 
tain between the rooms. He said your explanation satisfied him, and 
that he did not believe a guilty man would wait for the police to come 
before he washed his hands and then do it right before ’em. It seems 
to me it would be foolish to mix you up in it, sir, even if you did 
know about the will.” 

“Will? What will are you talking about?” asked Whidby, 
abruptly. 

“ Why, master’s will, sir. They must ’a’ opened his desk an’ got 
into his private papers, for they said there was a will makin’ you heir 
to all the property. They seemed to think there was motive enough, 
but they couldn’t fasten it on you.” 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


745 


“ Wliat else did you hear, Matthews ?” Whidby had turned pale, 
and was twisting his handkerchief tightly in his hands. u If one is 
to be suspected of murdering one’s nearest relative in cold blood, it is 
a substantial comfort to know that there is not enough evidence to 
convict. Did you hear anything else?” 

“ Nothin’ important, sir. There was a good deal said about a report 
that master was thinkin’ about gettin’ married, and that he would likely 
alter his will if he did. Mr. Soddingham mentioned that it had been 
talked of at the club, but that you had laughed at the report. They 
seemed to have found some of the young lady’s letters with master’s 
papers, and they appeared to point that way.” 

“ I think I did deny the report at first,” said Whidby, thoughtfully, 
“ but I confess I had just begun to think my uncle was in love. She 
is a worthy young woman, but much too young for him, and was in- 
fluenced by his wealth. Perhaps you had better go and speak to the 
undertaker. I suppose they will want to put the coffin in here. I 
shall go up-stairs and occupy the front room. I don’t feel like going 
out ; my head aches, and I don’t seem to have half my wits about me. 
I could not rest in my old room with the undertaker in the other.” 


CHAPTER III. 

As Whidby ascended the stairs in the hall, Matthews admitted one 
of the undertakers and his assistants and showed them into Strong’s room. 
Whidby went into the bedroom above, closed the door, threw himself 
on a lounge, and shut his eyes. In a few minutes he began to feel less 
nervous. A restful sensation stole over him, and he felt sleepy. Sud- 
denly his mind reverted to what seemed a vague dream of the night 
before. Was it a dream, or could it have been reality? He sprang 
up, quivering all over with excitement, but the more he thought of it 
the more the memory evaded him, till in desperation he sat down on 
the lounge and buried his face in his hands. Just then he heard a 
step in the hall, and some one rapped on his door. 

He rose and went to the door. It was Matthews. 

“ Colonel Warrenton is down-stairs, sir, and wants to see you.” 

u Send him up here,” said Whidby. “ I don’t care to go down.” 

In a moment Colonel Warrenton entered. He was a short, middle- 
aged man, with a red face and iron-gray hair. He put his silk hat on 
a table and gave Whidby his hand. 

“ I was dumfounded by the news,” he said. “ We are such good 
friends that I waived all ceremony and came right round.” 

“ I’m glad you did, old man,” returned Whidby. “Sit down, and 
excuse me if I am not entertaining. The truth is, I am badly broken 
up over this affair. Something is wrong with me : I am not myself 
at all.” 

The visitor’s glance wandered aimlessly about the room in the 
silence that followed Whidby’s remark. Then the colonel said,-— 

“ You need not tell me anything. I have heard all about it from 
Captain Welsh. He and I have been intimate friends for years. You 


746 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


have not asked for my advice, but, my boy, I love you like a brother, 
and I don’t want to see you run your head into trouble for the lack of 
a lawyer’s opinion.” 

“ Why do I need legal advice ?” asked Whidby, nervously. “ In 
what way ? I don’t understand.” 

The lawyer drew his chair nearer to the young man, who was 
seated on the lounge, and laid his hand on his knee. 

“ Of course it is absurd to think of your being concerned in Strong’s 
death, Alfred,” he began ; u but I am obliged, through the force of 
habit, to look at such affairs from a professional stand-point. I know 
you are innocent ; but innocent men have been hanged before this, and 
I have seen men put on trial for murder with less circumstantial evi- 
dence against them than there is against you.” 

Whidby brushed back his dishevelled hair with a quivering hand, 
and stared at his friend. 

“ You mean that I may yet be accused ?” 

“ It all depends on Hendricks,” the colonel interrupted. “ He is 
the brightest man in his line in the world. If he gets on the track of 
the real criminal, you are all right, and not a soul will accuse you ; 
but if his investigations should be confined to this house it might grow 
very unpleasant for you. It struck me that this view of the case might 
not occur to you, and that is the reason I am here. You see, it is well 
that I came of my own accord, for if you had sent for me it might 
have had an ugly look.” 

The young man rose and began to walk to and fro across the room. 
“ I am very much obliged,” he sighed. a I never dreamed of being 
suspected. Matthews said that after I left the room during the inquest 
something was brought up about the blood-stain on my hand and 
uncle’s will ; but that did not trouble me.” 

Colonel Warrenton’s glance followed his friend’s form back and 
forth for a moment ; then he said, — 

“ Pardon me, my boy, but do you really know if you got the blood 
on your hand from the sheet, or from the portiere ? Is your memory 
clear on that point ?” 

“ No ; I did not notice it till I started to wash my hands. In fact, 
the detective called my attention to it. I must have been very much 
excited, or I would have noticed a thing like that; but, old man, my 
head is in such a whirl that I do not know what I am saying. I over- 
slept, and feel as if I had been drugged. Besides,” — Whidby stopped 
at the colonel’s side and put his hand on his shoulder, — “ besides, to 
tell the truth, something has come into my mind since I have been 
in this room, — something I did not remember at the inquest. Per- 
haps I ought to tell the police about it, since I did not think of it 
when testifying. As I was lying down just before you came up, some- 
thing flashed into my mind like a dream. I seemed to recall walking 
about my room and being half waked by stumbling over a chair near 
my bed. I caught the chair to steady myself, and half remember that 
my shirt, which I had thrown on the chair when I went to bed, fell 
on the floor. It seems to me that I picked up the shirt and replaced 
it, and then went back to bed. I know the shirt was on the chair when 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


747 


I waked this morning, but I can’t imagine what I was doing up in the 
night.” 

“ Ah, that is indeed curious,” said the lawyer, thoughtfully. “ Can 
you remember passing the portiere, or touching it with your hand ?” 

“ No ; I have told you all I remember.” 

“ Was the chair between the portiere and your bed?” 

“Yes.” 

“ Was the back or the front part of the chair towards the portiere?” 

“The back.” 

“ You are sure of that?” 

“Yes; it is quite clear to me, though I can’t explain why, that I 
ran against the back of the chair.” 

“Then you were undoubtedly coming from the direction of the 
portiere and going towards your bed ?” 

“ It seems so.” 

“ Do you walk in your sleep ?” 

“ Not now ; at least, not to my knowledge. I used to do it when 
I was a boy.” 

“ At that time were you ever conscious afterwards of having done 
so?” 

“ Yes ; I would sometimes get lost in my room and be unable to 
find my way back to bed till I waked.” 

“ That showed you had a habit of walking about and unconsciously 
returning to bed. It was only when something half roused you that 
you were unable to act for yourself.” Colonel Warrenton reflected 
for a moment ; then he said, “ Look here, Alfred ; I want to give 
you some advice. You have truthfully testified on oath as to what 
happened last night to the best of your memory at the time you were 
questioned. This little circumstance has since come into your mind. 
Now, my advice to you is to keep this to yourself, — unless, of course, 
you should be called to testify again.” 

“ Why?” asked Whidby. 

“ For the sake of your personal safety. Innocent men have been 
executed for crime too often for one to deliberately put his head into a 
halter.” 

“ Pooh !” said the young man, uneasily. “ It seems like confessing 
to guilt to keep back anything bearing on the case.” 

“ You are not capable of seeing what is best for you to-day, my 
boy. Don’t say anything about it for a while, anyway, — at least, not 
till I see you again.” 

“ All right; I can promise that,” said Whidby, as he shook hands 
with the lawyer. 

Whidby continued to pace the floor of the room until Matthews 
rapped at the door. 

“ What is it now?” asked Whidby, admitting him. 

“ A lady in the library to see you, sir.” 

“ A lady to see me? Who is it?” 

“ I took her to be Miss Delmar, sir.” 

“Annette — Miss Delmar? You must be mistaken.” 

“ I think not, sir.” 


748 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


“ Tell her I will be down at once.” Whidby turned to a mirror 
and stared at his haggard features and dishevelled hair. “ I wonder 
what she can want,” he said to himself, as Matthews softly closed the 
door. “This is no place for her. Poor girl! She has heard the 
reports, and could not wait.” 

Descending the stairs and turning into the library, Whidby found 
the visitor standing at a window looking into the yard. 

“Annette!” he exclaimed, as she turned, and he advanced to her 
with extended hands. 

“ Oh, Alfred !” she cried, softly, as she put her hands into his. 
“ I am so sorry about this.” Then she saw his face in the light from 
the windows, and shrank back in amazement. “ Why, why, you are 
ill ! You look — I never saw you look so badly. What is the 
matter ?” 

“ I have had an awful time of it,” he said, drawing her into his 
arms. “ I suppose I show it. But why did you come here ? Why 
didn’t you wait ? I was coming round as soon as possible.” 

“ I couldn’t wait, dear,” she said. “ I simply should have gone 
mad. I knew you could explain.” She shuddered. “ Where is it ? — 
your uncle, I mean.” 

He nodded towards the room across the hall. 

“ In there. The undertakers have it in charge.” 

She drew more closely to him. 

“ This is certainly a proof of my love, Alfred,” she said, smiling 
faintly. “There never lived a soul with a greater horror of such 
things than I have, and yet I came. No, I could not wait. You 
know how papa is. He never had much faith in you anyway, and 
this morning when he heard the news down town he came right home 
to see me. Oh, he acted shamefully ! I hate to think that he is my 
father. I could not tell you all he said.” 

Her voice had sunk into a whisper, and she hid her pretty face on 
his shoulder to keep him from seeing the tears in her eyes. 

“ What did he say ?” asked Whidby. 

“ Oh, he says they think you did it. He says there is undoubted 
evidence against you.” 

Whidby was silent for a moment, drawing his breath rapidly, and 
looking more careworn than ever. He raised her face with a trembling 
hand and looked into her eyes. 

“Pshaw ! Didn’t he know that the coroner’s jury gave a verdict 
that — that uncle met his death at the hands of some person un- 
known ?” 

“ Yes, but he said you were going to be tried for the crime, and 
that it was the general opinion you’d be found guilty. He said your 
movements were watched by the police, and that you could not escape. 
I stood up for you, and we had some hot words. He forbade me to 
receive you at home, and so I stole away and came here. Nothing on 
earth would make me think you could do such a thing, and I know 
you will establish your innocence.” 

Whidby made no reply. He was thinking, with a heavy heart, of 
the dream-like impression he had recalled of being up in the night, 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 749 

and of the blood-stain on his hand. To avoid the girl’s searching 
eyes, he turned and led her to a sofa. 

“ What is the matter?” she asked, taking his hand in both of hers 
when they were seated, and anxiously stroking it. “ You seem absent- 
minded. You are not like yourself.” 

“ I am awfully done up, Annette,” he answered. “ You don't 
know what I have gone through. I am acting on the advice of Col- 
onel Warrenton. He is sure that he can pull me out of this, though 
even he says I am in danger unless — unless the real criminal can be 
traced.” 

“In danger? Does he think that? Oh, Alfred, I can’t bear it! 
It was already hard enough as it was, with papa’s objection to you on 
account of your lack of means, and now — to think that you — you! 

must be tried for your life, that you must be suspected of Oh, I 

can’t bear it !” And the girl burst into tears. 

Whidby tried to soothe her with caresses and tender words, but the 
horror of his situation bore down on him with such force that he found 
himself utterly helpless to console her. 

“ You’d better not stay, darling,” he said, presently. “ They are 
going to bring the coffin into this room, and you must not be here. 
Poor little girl ! To think that I should bring such trouble on you !” 

Miss Del mar rose and wiped her eyes. 

“ I was a goose to break down that way,” she said, forcing a smile. 
“ I came to try to comfort you with an assurance of my faith in you, 
and I’ve acted like a school-girl. You will write to me, or send Col- 
onel Warrenton to see me, as soon as you know anything definite, 
won’t you ?” 

“ Certainly,” he replied. “ Don’t worry. It will all come out right. 
You shall hear from me every day. I will send the colonel round this 
evening.” 

Whidby stood at the window and watched her graceful figure pass 
through the gate and cross the street. 

“ I’m sure I did right in not telling her about that after-thought 
of mine,” he reflected. “ It would only worry her, and — and perhaps 

it means nothing after all. And yet My God ! it will drive me 

mad! Could I have done it? Will it all come back to me some 
day ?” 

He sank on the sofa, covered his face with his hands, and groaned 
aloud. 


CHAPTER IV. 

When Warrenton left Whidby, he went down-stairs. He knew 
the room where Whidby had slept the previous night, but he found 
the door closed and locked. 

Hearing the voices of the undertaker and his men in Strong’s 
room, he entered it. The men looked up from the coffin at him, and 
Hodson, the undertaker, bowed and said good-morning as Warrenton 
approached and looked at the dead man’s face. 

“ I’ve never seen anything like that smile, colonel,” said Hodson, 


750 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


“ and I’ve been in this business over twenty years. It was all I could 
do to get my men to go to work when they first saw him. We tried 
to close his eyes ; but the lids are as stiff as whalebone.” 

The colonel shuddered at the coarseness of the man’s words. 

“ How do you explain the smile ?” he asked. 

“ I can’t explain it at all,” answered the undertaker. “I don’t 
think such a thing ever happened before.” 

Warrenton bent over the coffin for a moment. “ It seems to me to 
be a genuine smile, unmixed with any sensation of pain, or even surprise.” 

“ He was laughing, colonel, if ever a man laughed in his life. I 
ain’t particularly superstitious. I once unscrewed a box and let a man 
out that had passed for dead thirty-six hours. I was alone with it at 
midnight. You can bet that gave me a shock ; but, frankly, I’d hate 
to spend a night with this one.” 

“ Whidby slept in that room, didn’t he?” asked the lawyer, glancing 
indifferently towards the portiere. 

“Yes, sir, but the indications are that the deed was done very 
quietly. Perhaps Mr. Whidby was drugged.” 

Hodson turned to give some orders to his men. The colonel went 
into Whidby’s room and let the curtain fall behind him. The room 
had not been put to rights. A chair stood between the portiere and 
the bed. Its back was towards him. Warrenton listened. Hodson 
was still talking to his men, and the colonel could hear them using 
their tack-hammers. Quickly and stealthily he stepped to the chair 
and turned its back to the light from the window. He found what he 
feared was there, — a faint smear of blood just where Whidby had 
caught the chair with his right hand. 

“ Enough to draw the halter around his neck,” thought the lawyer. 
“ I hope it escaped that detective’s eye.” He had just replaced the 
chair, when the porti&re was drawn back and Hodson looked in. 

“ I beg pardon, colonel, but Captain Welsh asked me to allow no 
one to come in here. I thought you went into the hall.” 

“ I was just wondering how Whidby could have slept so soundly 
unless he was drugged,” said the colonel. “ I would not have come in 
if I had thought it was forbidden. Whidby and I are so intimate, 
you know, I feel as if I were at home here.” 

“ Oh, no harm done,” said the undertaker, as he held the curtain 
aside for Warrenton to pass out. 

The colonel went into the hall and turned into the parlor. Here 
he looked about aimlessly for a moment, and then, seeing an open door 
which led to the servants’ rooms in the rear, he passed out. 

In a little room adjoining the kitchen he found Matthews. 

“ I want to see you, Matthews,” said the colonel. “ I want to ask 
you some questions. Mr. Whidby is so excited and upset that I don’t 
wish to disturb him, and yet I must get some light on this subject.” 

“ I don’t know much about it, sir,” replied the gardener. “ I’ve 
told all I know to the jury.” 

The colonel sat down on a window-sill and lighted a cigar. 

“You can trust me, you know, Matthews. I am an old friend of 
the family.” 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


751 


“ Oh, I know that, sir, well enough.” 

u You have been in Mr. Strong’s service a long time, Matthews, and 
you may now remember some things that you did not think of when 
you were testifying. For instance, have you any recollection of ever 
having seen anything which might tend to show that Mr. Strong had 
an enemy ?” 

Matthews stared at the lawyer for a moment in silence, and then 
sat down in a chair and folded his hands nervously over his knees. 

“ I can’t say I have, colonel,” he said ; “ and yet — well, you know 
my master was a very excitable, suspicious sort of a man.” 

“ I never knew that.” 

“ Well, he was, sir. He used to have spells of it, sir, — spells I 
call ’em. He didn’t seem able to sleep well at times. He has once in 
a while had me sleep on the floor at the foot of his bed.” 

“ Ah ! Is that so ?” 

“ Not often, sir, but perhaps twice a year, or thereabouts.” 

“ Do you happen to recall anything that might have caused him 
uneasiness at those times ?” 

“ Well, I did have a sort of idea that he might ’a’ brought home 
some money and was afraid o’ bein’ robbed of it.” 

“ Can you remember ever having seen any one about just before or 
after those spells ?” 

Matthews was silent, deep in thought, for a moment, then he said, — 

“Yes, I do remember somethin’ rather odd, sir. It was when 
Mr. Whidby was at the sea-shore in the summer, and master was 
makin’ me sleep in his room every night while he was gone. One 
evenin’ master told me he was lookin’ for a visitor to see him on im- 
portant business, and that I was to stay back here till he left.” 

“ Did you see the man ?” 

“ Yes, sir. I opened the door when he rang.” 

“ How did he look ?” 

“Very queer-lookin’ individual, sir, it struck me. He looked like 
he might be a drinkin’ man. He was tall and thin, and had dark eyes 
and white hair. He was so queer-lookin’, sir, that I thought strange o’ 
master havin’ a appointment with him. To tell the truth, sir, I kinder 
thought it might be some poor relation in trouble, that master didn’t 
care for people to see about. I showed him into the parlor, and went 
back into the kitchen. About fifteen minutes after that, I thought 
I heard loud words and a scramblin’ o’ feet in the parlor. Their voices 
would sink down and then rise up again like they was quarrelin’. I 
was frightened, but was afraid o’ displeasin’ master if I went in, so I 
just come as far as the room next to the parlor.” 

“ Did you then hear anything ?” 

“ They kept it up, sir. Master seemed to be arguin’ with him in a 
low, steady voice, and the stranger would break in and beat the 
table with his fist. Once I heard him say he wanted half of some- 
thin’, and just after master answered I heard blows, and the failin’ 
of chairs. I thought I had waited as long as I could, and, grabbin’ a 
old pistol that I always kept by me, I rushed in. Master was on one 
side of the room, behind a sofa, and the fellow was holdin’ a chair by 


752 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


the back and just about to raise it. When he saw me and my pistol, 
he put down the chair, and, with a oath, backed out of the room. I 
followed him as far as the front door, and saw him spring over the 
fence and walk away quick. 

“ Then I went back to master. To my surprise, he was tryin’ to 
smile as if nothin’ had happened ; but he was as white as a ghost. 
For a minute he couldn’t say a word. Presently he said, — 

“ ‘ Rather nasty temper he has, Matthews. My friend was a little 
upset, but he would have come round all right. You frightened him 
away with that pistol.’ 

u< Didn’t he strike you, master?’ I asked. ‘I thought I heard 
you fightin’.’ And then I noticed a bruised spot on his forehead which 
showed mighty plain under his white hair an’ on his pale skin. He 
saw me lookin’ at it, and put his hand over it, but he was so excited he 
couldn’t keep from showin’ that he didn’t want to let me know what 
the cause of the trouble was. 

“‘The fellow was drunk,’ master said. ‘I think his mind is 
wrong, too, a little. Yes, he did strike me, and I reckon you were 
right to come when you did.’ 

“ Then he asked me if I was sure my pistol was loaded, and told 
me to sleep in his room, and see that the windows and all the doors 
were locked.” 

“ Was that all ?” asked the colonel, deeply interested. 

“ Yes, sir, except he made me promise not ta mention the affair 
to Mr. Whidby nor any one else. I’m sure he didn’t sleep a wink 
that night, for I heard him rollin’ and tumblin’ in bed, an’ he’d get up 
every now and then and cautiously look out of the window.” 

“ After that, did you see anything to indicate that Mr. Strong was 
ever frightened or greatly excited about anything?” 

“ Nothin’, sir, except he bought a fine watch-dog, the one that died 
last winter, you know. He was always interested in him, and particular 
about leavin’ him unchained at night. Then I do seem to remember 
that now and then master would get a letter that would excite him 
somewhat. They always came in strange-lookin’ blue envelopes. Once 
when I gave him one at breakfast he turned pale when he opened it, 
and didn’t finish eatin’.” 

Colonel Warrenton rose, and knocked the ashes from his cigar. 

“ I’ve got an appointment down town,” he said. “ See here, 
Matthews : don’t say anything about what you have told me. I am 
investigating a little on my own account in this matter, and I don’t 
want any one to know it. Hold your tongue, and I’ll see that you 
don’t lose anything by it.” 

A few minutes later the colonel was in his office down town. He 
had just begun the dictation of a letter to his stenographer, when he 
heard the cry of a newsboy in the street : 

“ Extra ! Extra Morning News ! New developments in the Leigh- 
ton Avenue murder case ! Extra ! Extra !” 

The colonel went to the door quickly, and returned reading a news- 
paper still damp from the press. Under large, sensational head-lines 
he read a detailed account of a circumstance that seemed to bear strongly 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX . 


753 


on the murder of the night before. No less than twenty-five type- 
written notes had been picked up in different parts of the city early 
that morning : they had been found on the side-walks, under the doors 
of private residences, in the yards of unoccupied houses, in the mail- 
boxes by letter-carriers, behind the counters of shops, and one in the 
coat-pocket of Mr. William Roundtree, the mayor, who had declared 
to a reporter that it must have been put there while he was wearing 
the coat. 

The wording of all the notes was exactly the same, and ran as 
follows : 

“ Nobody will ever discover who murdered Richard N. Strong. It 
will be useless to try. The secret lies in the smile on the dead man’s 
face. Who put it there, and how was it done? These questions will 
remain unanswered till the end of time. But this is not all. Before 
long, others will wear the dead, white smile. 

“ One who knows his business.” 

Colonel Warren ton hurriedly read the rest of the sensational article, 
then threw aside the paper, and went down the street for two or three 
squares and up to the office of the mayor. He sent in his card, and 
was admitted at once. Mr. Roundtree was writing at his desk, but he 
rose and drew a chair near him for his friend to sit down. 

“ I just ran in to see about that note you got,” said the lawyer. 
“ Is it a fact that you found it in your pocket?” 

The mayor thrust his right hand into the pocket of his sack-coat. 
“ He put it right there, colonel. I could show it to you, but I sent it 
to the police. I thought it was the only one till I read the extra just 
now.” 

“ How could it have got into your pocket?” asked Warrenton. 
“ Have you been in any crowds to-day ?” 

“ Several, as it happened. At the post-office this morning there 
were a great many people waiting for the mail. I stopped at the 
Imperial Hotel in a throng of politicians, and at the corner of Main 
and Broad Streets I was in a crowd around the driver of a cab who 
had been thrown against a lamp-post and considerably injured. It 
could have been put into my pocket at any one of those places without 
my knowing it.” 

“ What do you think ought to be done?” asked the colonel. 

“ I think the villain ought to be run down at all costs,” was the 
reply. “ I have just sent out a circular to be posted, in which I offer, 
in the name of the city, five thousand dollars for his capture.” 

“ A good idea,” said Warrenton. “ Do you know this detective 
Hendricks?” 

“ By reputation only. I understand he is the sharpest fellow alive 
in his particular line. I am glad he happened to be in town. You 
know he refused to come here just after the McDougal murders, he 
has so much to do in the larger cities. But I think he’s interested in 
this case. They say he’s like a blood-hound : when he smells blood 
he can’t stop till he has run something down. By the way, he has 
Vol. LYII.— 48 


754 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX \ 


bound us to secrecy. He says he will drop the case the moment it gets 
into the papers that he is here.” 

“ So Welsh said. I would not have mentioned it to you, but he 
told me you had given your consent to Hendricks being employed.” 


CHAPTER V. 

Mayor Roundtree lived in a large two-storied brick house 
standing back a hundred yards from the street, in extensive grounds. 
It was in the suburbs of the city, and at the end of one of the electric 
car lines. 

When the mayor went home that afternoon, about six o’clock, he 
found his family sitting on the front veranda waiting for his return. 
The group consisted of his son Marion, a young man just of age, his 
married daughter Lilian, her husband, Fred Walters, and Mrs. Round- 
tree. 

“ Talking about the murder, I know,” said the mayor, as he came 
up the steps. 

“ We are concerned about your offering that reward, dear,” Mrs. 
Roundtree replied. “ If I had been down town I should have begged 
you not to do it. The murderer is evidently of unsound mind, and 
the reward may direct his attention to you. You know he says ” 

“ Mamma’s only nervous,” interrupted Lilian. “ She hasn’t talked 
of a thing all day except the isolation of our house and how easy it 
would be for a creature of that kind to make us his victims.” 

“ Pshaw ! that’s all nonsense,” exclaimed the mayor, taking the 
seat vacated for him by his son, who had thrown himself into a ham- 
mock. “ Besides, the reward may be the means of putting the man 
under lock and key.” 

“ I wish it had been the duty of some one else to offer it,” replied 
Mrs. Roundtree, plaintively. “ Why, dear, he was near enough to 
have killed you when he put that note into your pocket.” 

“ He is not that sort of criminal,” said Lilian, to the surprise of 
the others. “ He will never kill any one in open daylight on the 
street, where he might be seen. As the murderer says in his letters, 
the secret lies in that smile on Mr. Strong’s face. Dr. Kramer saw 
the body, and he said this afternoon that he had never heard of any 
one being killed with just such a facial expression. It is my opinion 
that you’ll have to go deep into psychical phenomena to get at the 
mystery.” 

“ Hush, Lilian : I don’t like to hear you talk that way,” said Mrs. 
Roundtree. “ I have never approved of your reading the books you 
read.” 

“ You object to my reading anything which is really new and pro- 
gressive,” said the young wife, pettishly. “ The world would stand 
still if we did not study the new sciences, — if we did not allow our- 
selves to think on new lines.” 

“ It seems to me, sister,” remarked Marion, “ that you have talked 
more about the murder than any one else. Since we have been out 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


755 


here, I have noticed that mother has changed the subject three times, 
but some remark of yours has always brought the conversation back 
to it.” 

“ Brother, you know that is a deliberate — it is not true,” Lilian 
retorted, angrily. 

“ I must say I thought so too, dear,” interposed Fred Walters. 
“ Don’t you remember mother said something about the services at 
church to-night? Well, before any one had time to reply you began 
talking again about whether it could be proved that Whidby had not 
been out of the house to distribute the notes.” 

Lilian seemed to forget her anger in her interest in the subject. 
She rose and stood in the door- way. “ As far as that is concerned,” 
she said, with animation, “ Whidby could have had an accomplice. It 
was a strangely dramatic thing the way he called up the police at the 
telephone and remained with the corpse till they came, not even allow- 
ing the servant to enter. If he is guilty, he is at least original. In 
these days of masculine stupidity it would be a pity to execute an 
original man. I never could see why murderers should be such short- 
sighted fools. I read the other day of a man who shot another down 
and went to the jail pretending to be insane to escape punishment. 
How much more effective it would have been if he had systematically 
pretended to be insane a month or so before he committed the deed ! — 
I mean if he had done little things which would scarcely cause remark 
at the time, but which, coupled with the crime afterwards, would have 
pointed conclusively to insanity. If I wanted to drown myself in the 
river, and did not want any one to think it was done intentionally, I 
would first do a great many things to make it look as if I had never 
dreamed of such a thing. I would make engagements, leave things 
unfinished, as if I intended to return to them the next moment, 
and ” 

“ Oh, hush, my child !” interrupted Mrs. Roundtree. “ What can 
make you say such things ? I have never heard you talk so peculiarly.” 

u Everything is peculiar to mamma,” the girl coldly laughed, as 
she turned into the drawing-room. The next moment they heard her 
playing on her violin. It was a strange, weird air, and she played it 
with skill and power. The others listened silently for a few moments ; 
then Mrs. Roundtree said to the mayor, — 

“ We really must not talk about that affair before her : her mind 
has been dwelling on it all day. She has been to me three times to 
say that it would be quite natural for such a criminal to desire to be 
revenged on you for offering the reward. She tries to hide her interest 
in the subject, but it shows itself every minute. She was so eager to 
hear the news that she went down to the gate to meet the newsboy with 
the afternoon paper, and I had to speak to her twice to get her atten- 
tion after she had read the account of the crime. Listen to her music ! 
Can’t you detect her nervousness in her playing ? She doesn’t play 
that way usually. Hush ! she has stopped.” 

“ It is tea-time,” said Lilian, coming to the door. “ Why don’t 
you come in ?” 

With a solicitous expression on his face, Fred Walters rose, and, 


756 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX . 


putting his arm round her slender waist, led her before the others into 
the dining-room. She was tall and graceful and quite pretty. Her 
eyes were large and hazel, her hair light brown and abundant. Her 
feet were small and well shaped, her hands long, tapering, and strong- 
looking. 

The family talked of other things than the murder during the meal, 
but Lilian took no part in what was said. She ate slowly and daintily 
and seemed thoughtful. After tea, Marion, his father and mother, and 
Fred Walters had a game of whist in the drawing-room. Lilian had 
never liked the game. She improvised some soft airs on the piano, 
and then rose and went out on the veranda. Through the open 
window her mother could see her chair rocking back and forth. Later 
Mrs. Roundtree became interested in the game, and did not think of 
her daughter for half an hour. When the game was finished, she 
looked towards Lilian’s chair. It was vacant. 

“ Why, where is Lilian ?” the mother asked, excitedly. “ She was 
on the veranda just now.” Mrs. Roundtree called the girl’s name 
aloud, but there was no reply. 

They all rose hurriedly and went to the door, vaguely alarmed. 

“ Lilian ! Lilian !” Mrs. Roundtree called from the veranda. 

“ Here I am, mother.” 

The reply came from down the walk among the boxwood-and 
rose-bushes. “ I am coming : don’t be frightened.” 

“ Why, my child, how could you be so imprudent ?” cried Mrs. 
Roundtree, as the girl came into the light of the gas in the hall. 
Lilian seemed to be trying to conceal something under the light shawl 
she wore, and walked rather awkwardly as she came up the steps. As 
her husband approached her, she retreated into the shadow of the wall 
near the door. Then suddenly she broke into a low, mechanical 
laugh. 

“ The truth is,” she said, seeing that the others were waiting for an 
explanation of her actions, “ I came near having an adventure. I saw 
a man climb over the fence down by the rose-bushes. I knew he had 
no business there, and ” 

“ You went down there?” her mother gasped. 

The girl laughed coldly and drew a revolver from beneath her 
shawl. “ I ran up and got Fred’s revolver. I was not afraid. I 
knew — I don’t know how I knew it, but I was sure he was not armed, 
and that if I could catch him I could frighten him into submission.” 
She swung the revolver to and fro skilfully in her strong fingers. 
“ But he got away. He sprang over the fence and ran as soon as he 
saw me. I would have fired at him, but I knew he was beyond range, 
and that the report would frighten you out of your wits.” 

The group stood motionless and silent for a moment. Then Fred 
Walters drew a long breath, as he stepped towards his wife with ex- 
tended hand. 

“ Give it to me,” he said, in a strange, imperative tone. 

With a sudden look of defiance, she held the revolver behind her, 
and as he drew nearer she threw it over the balustrade into the flower- 
beds. 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX . 757 

“ I did not mean to do that,” she cried, impulsively, then she was 
doggedly silent. 

Fred Walters went down the steps, picked up the revolver, and 
came back examining it in the light. 

“ It’s loaded,” he said under his breath to the mayor. 

“ Of course it’s loaded,” the girl blurted out. “ Do you think Fd 
go down there to meet a — a red-handed murderer with an unloaded 
revolver ?” Then, with a deep flush on her face, she passed through the 
light at the door and resumed her seat in the rocking-chair before the 
window. 

“ My darling ” began Mrs. Roundtree, finding her voice at last, 

and advancing towards her. 

“ Don’t call me pet names !” broke in the young wife. u Women 
are such weak beings that the moment one of us does a sensible thing 
she is reproved. I am not afraid — really afraid — of any creature that 
ever walked on the earth. I only did what Fred or papa would have 
done. Why, I am a better shot than Fred, and he knows it. Let's 
talk of something else.” 

Without another word the mayor and his wife and son left Fred 
Walters with Lilian and went into the drawing-room. 

“ She has always been a strange creature,” sighed Mrs. Roundtree, 
“ but she has never acted so queerly before. Oh, Fm very much afraid 
she and Fred will not get along well together. They are so different. 
Don't you think he looked a little vexed just now, dear?” 

“ More surprised than anything else, 1 thought,” replied the mayor. 

Just then Fred and his wife passed the door, going towards the 
stairs. “ There are two sides to the question, ” Lilian was saying. 
“ Would you mind keeping yours to yourself?” 

Fred looked in with a flushed face. “ We are going to bed,” he 
said. “ She will be all right in the morning. I had no business to 
teach her to shoot.” 


CHAPTER VI. 

Late in the night Mrs. Roundtree was awakened by a light touch 
on her brow. 

“ It is I, mamma : don't be frightened.” And Lilian sat down on 
the side of the bed. “ I have not been able to sleep for — for my hasty 
words this evening. If you will forgive me I can go back to bed and 
sleep.” 

Mrs. Roundtree drew her face down and kissed it. 

" There is nothing to forgive, darling,” she answered. “ But why 
have you got on that heavy wrap, and — why, I declare, it is damp ! 
Have you — surely you have not been out again ?” 

The girl drew herself up stiffly and was silent for a moment. The 
room was faintly lighted by the moonbeams ; but Mrs. Roundtree could 
not see her face. 

“ No, I have not been out,” she said hesitatingly at first, and then, 
speaking more rapidly, “ but I have been sitting at the open window, 
and the dew may have fallen on me from the vines.” 


758 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


“ Bat why have you been up, dear ?” 

“ Because I could not sleep and did not want to disturb Fred by my 
restlessness. And — and then, mother, to tell the truth, I was not cer- 
tain that the man I saw might not come back again. Now, don’t be 
frightened, but I am pretty sure that it was the murderer, and that he 
has designs against us. It would be the most natural thing in the world. 
Father’s offer of a big reward is like an open challenge to him. The 
man who wrote those notes and did that deed is deep and cunning, and 
I don’t believe he’ll be easily caught.” 

Mrs. Roundtree sat up in bed and put her arm round her daughter. 
“ Oh, dear, you don’t know how miserable your talk makes me. You 
speak and act so queerly ! Go back to bed, and try to sleep. You 
have thought of all this till it has unnerved you.” 

The girl coldly drew herself from her mother’s embrace and stood 
away from her. 

“ I was never calmer — absolutely never calmer — in my life,” she 
said, quickly. She stared at her mother for a moment; then she 
stepped towards her with an arm outstretched. “ You know when the 
pulse of any one is excited. Feel mine. No, you have got to do it ! 
I am serious. I will not be accused of being agitated, when I am as 
calm as I can be. Feel it, I say !” 

Mrs. Roundtree was obliged to take her wrist and press her trem- 
bling fingers on the veins. 

“ You see,” the girl went on, “ I am not excited ; but you are, for 
you are quivering all over. Lie down and go to sleep again. I am 
sorry I waked you.” And she turned and went out of the room. 

The next morning, while the family were at breakfast, James, the 
butler, brought a folded paper to the mayor. He said he had found 
it among the rose-bushes near the gate. It was typewritten, and ad- 
dressed to “ Mayor Roundtree.” As he opened it, Mrs. Roundtree 
turned pale, and Fred Walters stared fixedly at him. Lilian did not 
seem to have noticed the man’s entrance, nor did she seem to hear her 
mother say, “ What is it, dear?” as she leaned towards her husband. 
The mayor finished the note and mutely handed it to his wife. Fred 
Walters got up and stood behind Mrs. Roundtree’s chair, reading the 
note over her shoulder. 

“Bring me a hot roll, Jane,” said Mrs. Walters to the girl who 
was waiting at the table. Then she seemed to notice that Fred had 
moved from her side. “Why, Fred !” she said, “is it polite to look 
over mamma’s letters?” 

A look of deep concern was on Walters’s face. He came back to 
his chair without replying. The mayor took the sheet of paper, put 
it into his pocket, and awkwardly resumed his breakfast. 

“ Something I’ve no hand in, that’s plain,” said Lilian. “ Well, I 
don’t care ; you’ve always tried to make a baby of me.” Then her 
color rose suddenly as she added, “ But I know what it is as well as 
you do. It is a communication from the man who was prowling round 
the house last night. I wish I had shot him.” 

A deep silence followed her remark. Fred Walters looked at her 
with a pained, puzzled expression, and as he saw that she was folding 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


759 


her napkin preparatory to leaving, he put out his hand to detain her, 
but she pushed it away impatiently. “ Keep the matter to yourselves,” 
she said, angrily. “You all have so much more intelligence than I 
have.” 

After she had left the room no one spoke for several minutes. The 
mayor took the note from his pocket and silently reread it. It was as 
follows : 

“ Dear Sir : 

“ Make your reward five hundred thousand dollars, and even then 
you would never capture me. That was a rash thing for you to do. 
Look to the safety of your own family. You’ll never know the moment 
it will happen. Your case shall receive my earliest consideration. 

“ One who knows his business.” 

“ What are you going to do ?” Mrs. Roundtree faltered, rising with 
her husband. 

“ Take it to the police and that New York detective,” he answered. 
“ It’s all I can do, and that’s my duty.” 

“ I would not go out so early,” said Mrs. Roundtree. “ Do you 
think it will be safe to leave us alone?” 

“Fred can stay; I shall not let this make any difference in my 
usual habits. Besides, I think it is only an idle threat.” 

“ Yes, I will stay,” Walters agreed. “ I don’t like to leave Lilian, 
anyway ; she is not well ; she has not finished her breakfast.” 

“ Had you not better ask the police to guard our house ? We are 
so isolated, you know.” And in her deep anxiety Mrs. Roundtree 
leaned heavily on her husband’s arm. 

“ I shall ask the police and Mr. Hendricks about that, and shall 
do as they advise. I’d better go down at once.” 


CHAPTER VII. 

A week went by. The body of Richard N. Strong had been 
buried, and Alfred Whidby was considered the legal possessor of his 
effects. Whidby had not been seen on the streets or at his club since 
the murder. It was on the eighth day after the burial that Colonel 
Warrenton called to see him. He was shown up to Whidby’s room. 

The young man rose from the table at which he was writing, and 
shook hands with his friend. He was pale, thin, and nervous. His 
eyes were sunken, his hair and dress untidy. 

“ Still up here in your new quarters,” said the colonel, sweeping 
the rather small room with a glance. “ I thought you’d move back to 
your old room.” 

Whidby shuddered. “ I don’t care to sleep there : by Jove, I 
don’t believe I could close my eyes.” 

The two men had taken seats opposite each other, and the lawyer 
emphasized his next remark by laying his hand firmly on Whidby’s 
knee. “ My boy, this will never do. You’d never make a soldier. 


760 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


You’ve got to rouse yourself and shake it off. You’ll lose your reason 
if you go on brooding over this thing. To tell the truth, you are 
looking worse and worse every day. Did you sleep last night ?” 

“ About two hours, all told,” replied Whidby. “ I know I am in 
bad shape. I can see it and feel it.” 

i( Look here, my boy,” — the colonel slapped Whidby’s knee 
soundly, — “ I want you to pull up and take a trip to Europe. It 
will give you a change of scene and something else to think about. 
You’ll be a new man in a month.” 

Whidby rose and began to place his papers in order on the table. 
u I’d never be able to think of anything else, no matter where I was; 
and then it would look like running away ; by Jove, it would be run- 
ning away. I am sure that I’ve done wrong in keeping back that 
matter from Hendricks. It’s cowardly.” 

“ You could tell them nothing that would help them, and it would 
only place you under deeper suspicion,” the lawyer replied. 

“ My God ! I’d just as soon be in a prison cell as here under the 
awful uncertainty as to whether I did it or not.” 

“ What did you say ? What do you mean ?” 

Whidby walked slowly from the table and laid his hand on his 
friend’s shoulder. 

“ I am afraid I had something to do with the murder. I can’t 
figure it out any other way. The blood on the curtain ; the stain you 
found on the chair ; my dim recollection of taking hold of the chair ; 
the drop of blood on my cuff — why, my hand — it was the right hand, 
you know — must have been absolutely wet with it.” 

“ Are you fool enough to think you could have killed a man in 
your sleep without being conscious of the act? Besides, remember 
the smile on Strong’s face : you’re obliged to admit ” 

“ That’s exactly what put me on this line,” Whidby interrupted. 
“ I noticed in a New York paper an interview with Dr. Henry Lamp- 
kin, the famous hypnotic expert, in which he said casually that from 
what he had read of the case he judged that my uncle was hypnotized 
by the murderer. Well, Warrenton, I am sure if I were to tell him 
what occurred to me that night he would say that I was also hyp- 
notized, — that — perhaps — I was made to do the deed for some one else. 
Such things have been done. Old man, that is what is troubling me. 
It is awful !” 

There was silence for a moment ; then the colonel said, — 

“ I’ll tell you what I would do, Alfred. I don’t think you could 
have been under any one’s influence that night ; but if you are going to 
brood over the matter this way till you are insane, I propose that we 
have Dr. Lampkin to come down here and give us his opinion. He is 
said to be a wonderful man, and he may, at all events, give you some 
peace of mind. He is said to be making marvellous cures among 
intemperate people, and children naturally depraved, through what he 
calls hypnotic suggestion. From what I hear of him, I believe he 
can be trusted even in such a delicate matter as this.” 

Whidby’s face brightened. “ That’s just what I want,” he said. 
“ Anything is better than this suspense. He may be able to tell me 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


761 


whether I actually did the deed. If he can assure me that it was not 
my hand that held the knife, he is welcome to every dollar of my 
uncle’s estate.” 

“ Oh, he won’t break us ; his prices are not high ; he does a great 
deal for no pay at all. But I shall write him at once, and report to 
you as soon as his reply comes. I believe hypnotism is a wonderful 
thing, but something tells me that it could not be carried to the extent 
you fear. Besides, you may not have been hypnotized at all ; you may 
have been slightly disturbed by the fellow’s movements in Strong’s 
room, and got up half awake and gone — after the murder — to his bed 
to reassure yourself. It may have been then that you got your hands 
in the blood without knowing it.” 

“ Ah, you give me the first bit of hope I have had,” cried Whidby. 
“ Write to him at once. I wish he were here now.” 

“ I’ll get him as soon as he can come,” the colonel promised, and 
he rose to go. At the door he turned back. 

“ I am trying to work up a little clue for myself,” he said. “ I am 
fond of this sort of thing. I’d give anything to beat this expert 
detective and run our man to the ground without consulting him. By 
the way, you and I might try to think of some motive for the crime. 
The others are doubtless losing valuable time in suspecting you. Now, 
do you happen to remember if your uncle ever had an enemy ?” 

“ Not that I know of,” Whidby answered. “ I don’t think he 
could. He was an easy-going man, and lived very quietly, — that is, 
since I have known him. Years ago, when he was a young man, I 
believe he had rather an adventurous life in the gold-mines out West 
somewhere. You know he made his start there. He has never told 
me much about those days. In fact, I have often thought he was 
oddly silent on the subject. It seems to have been the only part of his 
history that he has not talked to me freely about.” 

“ Do you know of any poor relation that may have troubled him 
for aid in any way?” 

“ No. But why do you ask? I don’t understand.” 

“ I can’t tell you now, but I am searching for a motive for the 
crime. Even if you could have been hypnotized, there would still 
have to be a motive for the crime. If the murderer was a skilful 
hypnotist he was no fool, and the motive must have been a strong one. 
But I see you are getting the blues again. Brace up. Good-by : I 
shall see you to-morrow.” 

When the colonel reached his office, he found a lady waiting for 
him in the anteroom. It was Miss Delmar. She wore a thick veil, 
which she threw back when he came in. 

“ Good-afternoon, Colonel Warrenton,” she said. “ I was too im- 
patient to wait for you to come to see me, knowing how busy you are, 
and I did want some news of Mr. Whidby.” 

"I understand, and he will be glad I saw you.” The colonel 
stepped back, took a look into his office, and then softly closed the 
door. “ Poor boy,” he went on, as he sat down near her, “ he has had 
enough to bear, without this unreasonable opposition of your father’s. 
He certainly needs all the friends he can get now.” 


762 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


Miss Delmar’s lips quivered, and she twisted her hands together in 
her lap as she spoke : 

“ Papa is even more severe than ever since he learned that I have 
been to see Mr. Whidby. I can’t imagine how that could have got 
into the papers. Papa says I am watched, and that everything I do 
is noted.” 

“ He is still confident that Whidby is the murderer?” 

“ Yes, and he thinks he knows a motive that no one else does.” 

“ What can that be?” 

“ Just a week before Mr. Strong’s death, papa had called on Mr. 
Whidby and forbidden him to pay his addresses to me. I am sorry 
to say papa is w r orldly-minded. He had heard the report of Mr. 
Strong’s intended marriage, and thought, in that case, that Mr. 
Whidby would not ” 

“Not be Strong’s sole heir?” 

“Would not be his heir at all. Papa thought Mr. Strong would 
change his will altogether. It is very heartless for him to think so, 
but he believes that Mr. Whidby committed the crime — through love 
for me — because his poverty was a barrier to our marriage.” 

“ That is an ugly view of the matter, and it might have weight 
with a jury,” replied the colonel. “Our only hope lies in finding the 
real murderer. The note dropped at the mayor’s house the other night 
by the man who was seen about the grounds proves that he is in this 
city and at large.” 

“ Papa says it is reported that some accomplice of Mr. Whidby’s 
did that to mislead the police.” 

Colonel Warren ton nodded thoughtfully. 

“Yes, and it would seem very plausible to them; but to us, who 
know the innocence of the one suspected, it proves other things, and 
we must profit by it. I could give this detective Hendricks a point or 
two, but I’m afraid he would think me not disinterested in my friend’s 
case.” 

Miss Del mar rose to go. 

“ I haven’t a minute. I am afraid papa will miss me and be angry 
again. Tell Mr. Whidby that I am very hopeful, — that I haven’t a 
single doubt that it will all be cleared up soon. Tell him I would 
write every day, but I know that my last letter was intercepted. Tell 
him I shall see him as soon as possible, and — and — but you know 
what to say. Don’t let him lose heart.” 

The colonel held her hand till they reached the door. 

“Don’t worry,” he said, in parting. “I shall have some good 
news for you in a day or two, I am pretty sure.” 


CHAPTER VIII. 

Captain Welsh showed considerable excitement when he read 
the note of warning which the mayor placed in his hands. Mr. Minard 
Hendricks was looking over a bundle of New York papers which had 
been sent to him, and did not look up when the mayor entered the room. 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


763 


Without a word, Captain Welsh held the note before his eyes, and 
waited for him to speak. After reading it, Hendricks stroked his 
beard thoughtfully for a moment, and then said, — 

“ I don’t think you need have any fear up at your place, Mr. 
Roundtree, but under such circumstances women are usually uneasy, so 
I should advise you, Captain Welsh, to have a couple of policemen in 
citizen clothes hang about the grounds for a few days.” 

This was done for a week, but, as nothing occurred to indicate the 
presence of danger, the men were ordered away. Everything went on 
smoothly till the day following Colonel Warrenton’s visit to Whidby. 
Mayor Roundtree, accompanied by Fred Walters, had gone down town, 
leaving his wife and Mrs. Walters alone with the servants. Mrs. Round- 
tree was in the sitting-room giving orders to the cook, and Mrs. Walters 
had strolled down the gravelled walk among the rose-bushes. 

The cook had just left her, when Mrs. Roundtree heard the report 
of a revolver outside. She sprang up and ran to a window. Not 
seeing her daughter on the veranda, she screamed, and almost fainted 
with fright. She staggered through the hall and reached the front 
door. Then, looking in the direction of the gate, she saw Mrs. Walters 
emerge from the rose-bushes and come slowly towards her. 

“ Don’t be frightened, mamma,” she cried, seeing her mother. “ He 
did not touch me.” In a moment Mrs. Roundtree was by her side, 
but so excited that she could not speak. “ I really did have a narrow 
escape, though,” continued Mrs. Walters. “You see now what I 
missed by not carrying the revolver. I think I could have hit him 
before he got away.” 

“Oh, what was it? what do you mean?” gasped Mrs. Roundtree, 
throwing her arms about her daughter. 

Mrs. Walters twisted herself from the embrace and pointed to a 
round hole in the sleeve of her wrapper. “ See that ?” she said, with 
a cold, calm smile. “ I’ve been shot at. As I was gathering these 
roses” (she still held them in her hand) “ I heard a report and felt 
something touch my sleeve lightly. At the corner of the lawn, just 
this side of the trees, I saw a man and a puff of smoke. He was about 
to shoot again, but, seeing me looking, he ran into the woods. I sup- 
pose he is out of reach by this time.” 

“ Come into the house, quick !” cried Mrs. Roundtree, drawing her 
along forcibly. “ He will shoot us !” 

Mrs. Walters impatiently drew herself from her mother’s arms. 

“ I shan’t be a coward, if you are,” she said, sharply. “ Don’t 
you know if you run from people of that kind they will be all the 
more apt to pursue you ? Besides, he is gone. Do you suppose 
lie would wait to be arrested after firing a revolver here in open day- 
light?” 

They had reached the steps of the veranda, and Mrs. Roundtree 
drew her into the house. James and Jane were standing, wide-eyed 
and frightened, in the hall. 

“Close the door, quick, James!” Mrs. Roundtree screamed, fol- 
lowing her daughter into the library. 

“ Leave it open. Do you want to smother us?” asked Mrs. Wal- 


764 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


ters, poutingly. “ Mother, I am ashamed of you. There is not a 
particle of danger, and I am no baby.” 

“ James, telephone to my husband and Mr. Walters, quick,” Mrs. 
Roundtree ordered. 

James went to the telephone and rang. Mrs. Walters followed him. 
“What do you want him to say?” she asked her mother. “He’ll 
frighten them to death. I’d better do it. — James, what is the matter 
with you ? Can’t you stand still ? Nobody will hurt you.” 

She took the receiver from him and placed it to her ear. “ Give 
me five sixty-seven. What? yes, five sixty-seven, — Mayor Round- 
tree’s office.” There was silence for a moment. Mrs. Roundtree sat 
on a sofa, staring at her, a strange question in her eyes. 

“Is that you, papa?” said Mrs. Walters in the telephone. “Yes, 
you are right ; it is Lilian. Don’t you know my voice? What is it? 
Well, the truth is, there isn’t a thing the matter; we are all right; but 
mamma is nervous and frightened, and perhaps you or Fred ought to 
come up.” 

Mrs. Roundtree ran to her. “Aren’t you going to tell him what 
has happened ? How can he tell the police if you don’t ? Give it 
to me.” 

“ Mamma, do be reasonable,” replied Mrs. Walters, holding the 
receiver out of her mother’s reach. “ Well, let me alone : I’ll tell him. — 
Yes, papa, that was mamma talking. I was on the lawn just now, and 
a man shot at me ; but he did not touch me, and ran away. Mamma 
thinks you ought to notify the police.” 

“ Fred is coming at once,” the mayor telephoned. “Stay in-doors. 
I shall notify the police, and come as quickly as I can.” 

When Mrs. Roundtree had heard her husband’s message she drew 
her daughter down on the sofa beside her and sat silently stroking her 
hand and looking anxiously towards the door. James took a position 
on the veranda, and the other servants stood expectantly in the hall. 

In fifteen minutes a cab dashed up the drive, and Fred Walters 
alighted, ran into the library, and took his wife in his arms. 

“Oh, my darling, are you hurt?” he asked, beside himself with 
excitement. 

“ Fred, don’t be silly,” she said, coldly pushing him from her. 
“ I telephoned that I was unharmed.” 

“Look at her sleeve,” wailed Mrs. Roundtree, almost in tears. 
“ The bullet passed within an inch of her arm. Oh, I don’t know 
what to do ! It is awful !” 

Fred stooped to examine the hole in the sleeve. 

“I was standing this way,” Mrs. Walters explained, with sudden 
animation, “ and when I heard the report ” 

“Your father is coming,” interrupted Mrs. Roundtree, as the 
sound of wheels was heard, and they all went to a window. It was 
the mayor, with Captain Welsh and Minard Hendricks, in a cab. 

“ I wonder if that detective hasn’t a high opinion of his ability,” 
said Mrs. Walters. “ He looks as if he thought he would get to the 
bottom of the whole mystery in a very short time.” She sat down in 
a rocking-chair, spread out her skirts, and pulled at the big sleeves of 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


765 


her wrapper. “ I suppose he will begin to catechise me. I am not 
presentable like this, but if — if I ran up-stairs, to fix up a little, 
you would think — I suppose you think I am an odd creature anyway.” 

No one answered her. The mayor was entering, followed by the 
others. He bent down and kissed his daughter, and then said, “ My 
dear, this is Mr. Hendricks. There is not a second to lose. He wants 
to ask you some questions.” 

Mrs. Walters bowed and smiled. “ I am ready, Mr. Hendricks. 
I think you’ll find me calmer than any of the rest.” 

“ It is usually the case,” Hendricks replied, with a smile. Then his 
smile vanished, and he bent his piercing gray eyes upon her so steadily 
that her own wavered a little, and she dropped her hand to arrange her 
skirt. “ You were on the lawn ?” he said, glancing out at a window, 
as if to relieve her embarrassment. 

Mrs. Walters instantly recovered her self-possession and looked him 
coldly in the eyes. 

“ Yes, on the right of the walk, among the rose-bushes. I was 
gathering roses. The bullet passed through my sleeve. See ! it was 
near enough, wasn’t it ?” 

“ Quite, I should think. It must have surprised you.” 

“ It did, of course,” answered Mrs. Walters, holding her roses to 
her nose. “ I heard the report, and then felt something like a little, a 
very little, tug at my sleeve.” 

“You are sure about that?” asked Hendricks, in an indifferent 
tone. “ You are sure that you heard the report before you felt the ball 
touch your sleeve ?” 

“ Quite sure,” said she ; “ but why ?” 

“He was not inside the fence?” went on the detective, looking 
through the window again. 

“ No ; outside the fence, at the corner of the lot.” 

“ Ah, yes, I see,” he replied, in a non-committal tone. “ He must 
have been a hundred yards from you. Permit me, please.” And, 
taking a silver-mounted lens from his pocket, he carefully examined 
the bullet-hole. For a moment no one spoke ; then he said, “ I wonder 
if we could find that little piece of lead. Would you mind coming 
with us and showing me exactly where you stood ?” 

“ Not at all.” Mrs. Walters rose with a gratified smile. 

“Don’t you think we are losing time, Mr. Hendricks?” asked 

Captain Welsh, in an undertone. “I am afraid ” But Hendricks 

pinched the captain’s arm warningly, and the remark was not finished. 

They had reached the lawn, when Hendricks stopped Mrs. Walters 
and examined her sleeve again. 

“Not satisfied yet?” she laughed. 

“ I can see better here in the sunlight,” he answered. “ I have 
made a study of the effect of bullets, fired at different distances, on 
various stuffs.” 

“ I have often thought your profession must be a fascinating one,” 
Mrs. Walters remarked, as they started down the walk. 

“ It is getting to be rather uninteresting employment. It is so easy 
to catch up with people unskilled in our craft. If would-be criminals 


766 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX . 


only knew that we understood half we do, they would not commit 
crime so often.” 

“ I had not thought of that,” said Mrs. Walters, curiously studying 
his features. “ But here is the spot. — Now, don’t let any one come 
here but Mr. Hendricks,” she added to the others ; “ you ought not to 
track it up till he sees my footprints. — There they are, Mr. Hendricks : 
don’t you see where my sharp heels went in? You can see that I was 
facing that way. The man stood over at the corner of the fence.” 

“ I see,” said Hendricks. “ What did he look like ? How was 
he dressed ?” 

“I am afraid I can’t describe him accurately. He seemed of 
medium height, had on gray clothes, and wore a long dark beard.” 

“The smoke may have given you the impression that his clothes 
were gray,” said Hendricks. “ May I take your place a moment?” 

She stepped back, smiling at the others, who stood on the walk, 
and he changed places with her. He stuck his umbrella in one of her 
tracks and left it there. “ Only to mark the spot,” he said, indiffer- 
ently. “ Now let’s all go over to the fence, and see if the rascal left 
any footprints there.” 

They all walked to the corner of the fence, and looked over towards 

the trees near by. “ I think ” Mrs. Walters caught the sudden, 

sharp glance of Hendricks, and paused. “ I started to say that it 
looks as if there were footprints over there,” she said, pointing to a 
spot where the yellow clay showed in the short grass ; “ but I may be 
mistaken.” 

Hendricks moved into her place, lowered his height to hers, and 
gazed at the spot for a moment, then he looked at her sharply. “ Your 
eyes are better than mine, Mrs. Walters. I can’t make out any- 
thing.” 

“ You have the keenest eyesight in America,” said Captain Welsh, 
with a smile. “ We have all heard about your experience with the 
Brooklyn blood-specks ” 

“Now I think I see what Mrs. Walters means,” Hendricks broke 
in, with a slight frown. “ It is easy to see what we know exists.” He 
put his hands on the rail of the fence, and, with the grace and ease of 
an acrobat, sprang over the sharp-pointed palings. The others passed 
through a gate near by, and came round to him as he was on his hands 
and knees, examining two deeply marked tracks in the yellow clay. 

“ Wore a number ten,” he said. “ Had any rain out here in the 
last two days?” He was looking up at Fred Walters. 

“ I think not, — none for a week,” replied Walters, looking in- 
quiringly round the group. 

Hendricks said nothing, but, motioning them to stand out of the 
way, he stood behind the footmarks and, with half-closed eyes, steadily 
sighted at the umbrella he had stuck in the earth, slowly moving from 
side to side and up and down. 

“ That’s all we can do here,” he said, finally. “ I shall run over 
in the yard and see if I can see anything of the bullet.” Again he 
vaulted over the fence, walked hurriedly across the grass, passed his 
umbrella, and began to examine the plastered wall of the conservatory 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 767 

beyond. He did not turn his head or make any remark as the others 
approached. 

“Did you expect to find it there ?” asked Mrs. Walters, with a 
smile. 

“ Hardly,” he replied. “ I only wanted to confirm my belief that 
it was not there.” 

“ Ah !” she said, and her eyes fell before his sharp glance. 

“ If you are through, we will go in out of the sun,” said the mayor, 
a trace of impatience in his tone. “ You may use my telephone if you 
want to communicate with your men.” 

“ I want to nose around a little out here,” said Hendricks, lightly. 
“ Where does your gardener keep his tools ?” 

Mr. Roundtree called Robert, the gardener, who stood on the 
veranda with the other servants, and he came to him. 

“ Where do you keep your tools ?” asked Hendricks, — “ your hoes, 
rakes, knives, and such things?” 

“ In the little room in the conservatory, sir,” Robert replied. 

“ Oh, in here.” Hendricks entered the conservatory, and tried the 
door of the little room near the entrance. 

“ It is locked, sir,” said Robert, producing a bunch of keys. 

“ It was not last night,” said Hendricks, as he thrust the key into 
the lock. 

“ No, sir, I forgot it last night.” And Robert looked at the de- 
tective superstitiously. 

“ No harm done,” replied Hendricks. He opened the door and 
glanced at a heap of gardening implements on the floor. 

“ You ought to hang up your watering-pot,” he remarked to the 
servant. “ It will rust the bottom to set it down damp.” 

“ I usually do, sir,” the man stammered. “ I thought I did the 
last time.” 

The detective picked up the watering-pot and emptied about a 
quart of water on the ground. “ You ought to have given that to 
your thirsty plants,” he said. 

“ It is the first time I have left water in it, sir,” apologized Robert. 
“ I suppose I was absent-minded yesterday.” 

“ So you have not used it to-day ?” 

“ No, sir.” 

“ Well, that’s all,” said Hendricks, turning to the mayor. “ It is 
a very perplexing case indeed.” 

“Shall I telephone my men?” asked Captain Welsh. “Don’t 
you think we ought to take some steps to catch the fellow ?” 

“ Not yet,” replied Hendricks ; and, walking by Welsh, he nudged 
him sharply with his elbow. “But we can go into the house out of 
the sun.” 

As they started to the house, Hendricks dropped back with Fred 
Walters and his wife, but she went forward and joined her mother. 
When they were in the hall, Hendricks said, “ Where is your study, 
Mr. Roundtree ? This room on the right ?” 

“ Yes,” replied the mayor. 

“ Well, let’s go in there a moment. Ah !” he exclaimed, in a tone 


768 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


of satisfaction, as they entered the room, “ you have a typewriter. It 
is just what I want ; I must write a letter at once to my assistant in 
New York, to tell him that I am detained here. But I can’t use this 
make of machine. Who uses it, Mr. Roundtree? Ah, I see Mrs. 
Walters does.” 

They all looked at Hendricks in wonder. 

“ Pray, how did you guess that?” asked Mrs. Walters, a cold smile 
on her face. 

“ One of the tricks of my calling,” was the reply. “ It’s easy. I 
noticed that the nails of your two index fingers are worn down roughly, 
so I know that you not only write on the machine, but you do it 
slowly, for you employ only those two fingers. Experienced writers 
use all the fingers of the hand.” 

“ It is simple enough since you have explained it,” replied Mrs. 
Walters. “ And you are exactly right.” 

“ Will you oblige me by writing a short note at my dictation ?” 
Hendricks asked, pushing a chair towards the machine. “I would 
scratch it down with a pencil, but all the letters I send to my office are 
carefully filed, and they look better typewritten.” 

“ I have a machine and a stenographer at the office,” interposed 
Captain Welsh ; “ my man will do it for you in a hurry. Surely we 
have no time to lose : the mayor and the ladies will feel insecure if we 
do not make a move pretty soon.” 

“ I think myself, Mr. Hendricks ” the mayor began, but the 

detective interrupted him : 

“ Oh, it will only take a moment. I have an addressed envelope 
ready in my pocket, and I can drop it in a letter-box as I go down. 
Take a seat, Mrs. Walters.” 

Lilian obeyed, with a curious upward look into his face, and a 
touch of hesitation, as she put a sheet of paper between the rollers. 

“Dear Hasbrooke,” Hendricks began, — “ Your letter received. 
Am engaged on important case here. Can’t come this week. Will 
wire you later. Ladsley affair must wait. Hendricks.” 

When Mrs. Walters had drawn the sheet from the machine and 
given it to the detective, he turned to the mayor. 

“What did you do with your old typewriter?” he asked, as he 
folded the letter and put it into an envelope and took a stamp from 
his watch-case. 

“ Why, I — I — think it is in the lumber-room,” the mayor stam- 
mered. “But how did you know I had one?” 

Hendricks smiled as he touched the stamp with his tongue and 
placed it carefully on the corner of the envelope. “ Another easy 
thing. Judging from its appearance, this machine cannot have been 
in use more than a month ; and Mrs. Walters writes too well to have 
learned within that time. I did not think it likely that she had 
practised out of this house. She looks like a stay-at-home little 
body.” 

“ How very simple !” the mayor exclaimed. “If only your keen 
sight will help us solve this mystery, we shall all be grateful.” 

Mrs. Roundtree seemed displeased with the delay. 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


769 


“ Aren’t you going to do something towards protecting our house, 
captain?” she asked, turning to Welsh. “Some one has attempted 
the life of my child. I shall go mad if something is not done at 
once.” 

Captain Welsh looked embarrassed. “The case is really in Mr. 
Hendricks’s hands,” he said, awkwardly. “ It is so hard to get his 
services, owing to his wide reputation and the demands on his time, 

that he is usually granted unlimited authority, and ” He stopped 

for lack of words. 

“ There is no reason why you may not place a guard round the 
house night and day, captain,” said Hendricks, frowning slightly at 
Welsh’s compliment. “ If it allays the fears of the ladies, it will serve 
a good purpose.” 

“ Thank you,” said Mrs. Roundtree, coldly. 

“Where is your telephone, mayor?” asked Welsh. 

“ In the library, across the hall. — Show it to him, Lilian,” said the 
mayor. 

When Mrs. Roundtree heard the telephone bell ring she went into 
the library to hear Welsh give his order, and Fred Walters followed 
her, leaving the mayor and Hendricks together. 

“ While they are in there, I should be glad to get a look at the 
grounds from a back window up-stairs, if you will show me up,” said 
the detective. 

“ Certainly, with pleasure,” the mayor replied. “ This way.” And 
he led Hendricks up the rear steps to the floor above. “ There is a 
window in this servant’s room,” he went on, pushing a door open, “ but 
it looks out on the side rather than the back. The old lumber-room 
is in the rear ; but you’ll get all over dust if you go in there.” 

“No matter : it won’t hurt me.” 

When they had opened the door of the lumber-room and were 
making their way through dusty piles of old furniture, carpets, rugs, 
pictures, and broken statuary, Hendricks smiled and pointed to a type- 
writer on a table near the window. “ See how well I guessed,” he 
said, crossing the room and bending over the machine. “ I am inter- 
ested in typewriters. I had a chance to buy stock in one before they 
became the rage, and if I had done so I would now be too rich to 
have to be nosing round in other people’s affairs like this. This ma- 
chine was made about ’85 : purple and copying,” he added, rubbing 
his finger on the ribbon and transferring the stain to his cuff. “ I like 
the black better.” Then he went to a window and carelessly looked 
out. “ Ah !” he said ; “you see how thick the woods are behind the 
place where we found his tracks ? He could have got away very easily. 
Would your daughter be able to defend herself, Mr. Roundtree, in 
case of sudden attack ?” Hendricks asked, as they came back towards 
the stairs. “ Can she use a revolver ?” 

“ Quite well indeed,” the mayor answered : “ her husband taught 
her. But I don’t like her to carry one. It makes her mother uneasy.” 

As they reached the lower floor the others were coming from the 
library. Welsh went out to call a cab, and Hendricks joined him. 
The moment the cab stopped at the door, the captain got in, but Hen- 
Vol. LYII.— 49 


770 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


dricks held back. “ I have left my umbrella out there/’ he said, apolo- 
getically. “ Wait a moment.” 

Hendricks went down the walk, and was soon hidden from view 
by the boxwood-bushes. Five minutes passed. Welsh was impa- 
tiently wondering what had become of him, when he emerged from 
the shrubbery, lighting a cigar. Without a word of explanation for 
his delay, he got into the cab beside Welsh, and told the driver to go 
ahead. 

“ Well,” said Mrs. Roundtree, as the cab drove away, “ that man 
must be overrated, certainly. If I had not heard that he was a bril- 
liant member of his profession, I should have said he was the most 
stupid man alive. I was so irritated by his dawdling actions that I 
was tempted to turn my back on him. The idea of his wanting to see 
the gardening-tools, lecturing Robert about not hanging up a watering- 
pot, and using our house to write his correspondence in, — and at such 
an awful time, too !” 

“ I think he was unable to find a ghost of a clue,” remarked Fred 
Walters. “ He was trying to hide his disappointment by indifference. 
He has no doubt accomplished great things in Europe and elsewhere 
in this country, but any one can see he has met his Waterloo 
here.” 

“ What did he go up-stairs for?” Mrs. Walters spoke to her father 
in a tone that was too low for the others to hear. He had sat down at 
his desk, several feet from where his wife and son-in-law were standing. 

“ To get a look at the grounds from the back windows,” the mayor 
replied. 

“ From the servant’s room,” she asked. 

“ No, the lumber-room.” And the mayor drew a sheet of paper 
towards him, and began to write. He did not notice that she stared at 
him strangely for a moment after he had answered, and that she sat 
down in a rocking-chair with her back to the light, and took no part 
in the conversation going on between Walters and her mother. 


CHAPTER IX. 

Hendricks sat smoking beside Welsh all the way down town. 
He seemed so deeply thoughtful that Welsh was afraid to disturb 
him. Presently, however, Hendricks sighed, looked into the captain’s 
expectant face, and said, — 

“ My New York case is puzzling me. I can’t make head or tail 
of it. It is certainly a most complicated matter. You may have read 
of the Sixth Avenue jeweller who was found dead ” 

“ My God, Mr. Hendricks ! — pardon me,” broke in Welsh, with a 
flash of the eyes, “ but this is really going too far. Surely you don’t 
realize my position. I have taken it on myself to employ you with 
the city’s money, and — and — surely this is no time to be talking of 
other cases.” 

Hendricks stared in surprise, blushed, and threw away his cigar. 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


771 


The cab was slowing up at Welsh’s office. Hendricks said nothing 
till they were inside and he had closed the door; then he coolly lighted 
another cigar, and went on : 

u You must pardon me, really, captain, but I have always worked 
with men who understand my awkward ways. They usually let me 
alone ; and I forgot that you don’t know my methods. I am a great 
economist of time when I am in thinking trim, and, as I had already 
arrived at the only conclusion possible in your case, at least at this stage, 
I was working on the other matter I mentioned.” 

“ Conclusion ? what conclusion?” cried Welsh. 

“Why, I thought you were following me step by step, up at the 
mayor’s ; though now I do recall that you made one or two proposals 
that rather seemed to indicate a lack of proper caution.” 

“ Why, I saw absolutely nothing,” replied Welsh. “To be frank, 
I thought you were hopelessly stumped, and were simply trying to kill 
time and make a favorable impression on the ladies.” 

“ I was trying to be agreeable, Welsh, I confess it. That’s my 
style. It makes an unpleasant job pleasanter to all concerned. If 
you ever have to handcuff a woman, tell her she has pretty wrists and 
she won’t mind it half so much.” 

“I am at sea,” said Welsh, “and completely overboard.” 

Hendricks leaned back, threw his feet on a desk, and chewed the 
end of his cigar. “I did not expect to find what I discovered up 
there,” he said, musingly, “ but when I once got started the whole chain 
of circumstances began to unroll, and was so easy to follow that I 
felt as if I were playing with a toy. I could have kicked myself for 
having to appear to take it all so seriously. I was tempted to make a 
joke of it. When I was half through, I wanted to throw down my 
hand and say, i Look here, I hold so and so, and I’ll bet my reputa- 
tion you haven’t a thing !’ ” 

“ I’m still in deep water,” said Welsh. “ I saw the bullet-hole, 
her tracks, the fellow’s tracks, and that was all. The nervousness of 
the ladies and the mayor’s anxiety absorbed me.” 

“ I did not go there to sympathize with any one,” answered the de- 
tective. “ I was looking for facts. But follow me now, and draw 
your own conclusions as we go. Well, what was the first incongruous 
thing that happened after we arrived ? Why, if you remember, Mrs. 
Walters said she was sure she heard the report before she felt the ball 
pass through her sleeve. The distance was about one hundred yards, 
and if the difference were noticeable at all it would have been, scien- 
tifically, you know, exactly the reverse.” 

“But surely,” protested Welsh, “you’d hardly expect an excited 
woman to be correct about such a minor detail as that.” 

“Mrs. Walters was not excited,” Hendricks answered. “You 
must have noticed that. If she had been, I should not have made a 
point there. However, that was only a little thing to start from, but 
it was sufficient, as I found out later. The next thing I did was to 
examine the hole in her sleeve. What did I do that for ? To find 
out if it were made by a bullet. It was rather too dark in the house 
to see well, but out in the sunlight I got another look. I saw that it 


772 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


really was a bullet-hole. I noticed a few black specks on the cloth, 
but, without being openly impertinent, I could not decide whether they 
had been caused by powder or soot, for the gown was gray.” 

“ At that distance ? Who ever heard of ” 

“ Hold on ! not so fast ! Ah, I see you are not following me ; but 
you’ll catch on in a moment, so let’s continue. She next showed us 
her tracks. Did you notice how deep and distinct they were ? It was 
the first thing that struck me. Her mother is twice as heavy as she is, 
and stood in the same sort of soil, but her feet made hardly any impres- 
sions. Don’t forget that I marked the spot where Mrs. Walters stood, 
with my umbrella ; after that, you know, we went over to the fence. 
There is a minor point here in Mrs. Walters being the first to see the 
footprints beyond the fence, but we will pass that, and come to the 
footprints themselves. Did you notice nothing remarkable about them, 
captain? No? Well, in all my experience I never saw such comical 
footprints. I was tempted to laugh outright, but it would have spoiled 
everything, so I smothered my amusement.” 

“ I saw nothing remarkable about them,” said Captain Welsh, 
impatiently. 

“They were made, captain, by men’s slippers, a number ten, with 
very thin soles. The heels had been well pressed down into the soft 
clay, and so were the middle parts of the soles, but the thin edges all 
round had turned up so easily that only a faint impression of the entire 
bottom was left.” 

“ What did you deduce from that?” asked Welsh, still perplexed. 

“ That they were worn by feet not half large enough for them, 
though they had doubtless been drawn on over a pair of boots. I saw 
by the shape of the track that the right one had come off once as the 
wearer drew it from the mud.” 

“ Ah ! curious !” exclaimed the captain ; “ but I don’t yet see what 
you are driving at, though I think you suspect — but how could you? 
Why ” 

“But that is not all,” the detective went on, smiling. “You re- 
member, perhaps, that I asked if it had rained out there recently. 
Well, I was trying to account, since there has not been any rain lately, 
for that naturally dry spot of clay being soft enough to have received 
such distinct footprints. On close examination, I detected the faint 
semicircular mark of a vessel in the edge of the grass, and, at exactly 
the right distance from it, a spot where a little water had trickled down 
from the spout on the clay.” 

“Ah, the watering-pot!” cried Welsh. “Wonderful ! wonderful ! 
Now I know what all that rigmarole to the gardener meant.” 

“ Yes, and I found a little water in it, too, and learned that it had 
last night been left on the floor when Robert declared that he usually 
hung it up, and on the bottom of it the stupid rain-maker had left a 
trace of the very clay in which we found the footprints. But I 
am too fast ; for you remember, as I stood at the big tracks, I sighted 
along over the fence at my umbrella on the lawn.” 

“ I remember,” said Welsh, with a laugh. “ And I own I thought 
you were making a blooming ass of yourself, and simply pretending 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


773 


to make investigations when you knew you were wholly at sea. But 
what were you doing it for ?” 

“ When I got my bearings in that way, I calculated that the handle 
of my umbrella was just about where her sleeve must have been 
when she was bending over. As I sighted along at it, I saw that 
if a bullet were fired from where I stood and passed through her sleeve 
it must — as it would naturally go in a straight line — strike a certain 
portion of the wall of the conservatory beyond her. I found, on ex- 
amining the wall, that it had not.” 

“ So you knew no shot had been fired ?” ejaculated the captain. 

“ No, not that,” returned Hendricks, “ for there were the specks on 
the gown, you know. I was, you see, convinced that the specks were 
made by a revolver at short range, and a woman of nerve made them, 
captain, for the ball passed very near the arm.” 

“ I begin to see what you suspect,” said Welsh, “ but I am so 
much astonished that I am unable to grasp it all. Surely she could 
not be ” 

“ Wait till I have finished,” the detective interrupted. “ Don’t 
jump to conclusions. I don’t think you were watching my work in 
the mayor’s study, for you seemed on pins and needles to get away.” 

“ You don’t mean that you did not really want to write that note?” 

“ No ; for I wanted her to do it,” said the detective, with a smile, 
taking from his pocket the threatening letter addressed to the mayor, 
and the note Lilian Walters had written at his dictation. He opened 
them side by side on a table, and continued : “ Notice this, captain : 
in the letter to the mayor the writer has misspelled the word received. 
It struck me, you see, that in nine cases out of ten a person that mis- 
spells a word once will do it again : so in my make-believe note I pur- 
posely made use of that word. You see the mistake occurs on both 
these sheets.” 

“ And you infer that ” 

“That the two communications were written by the same person.” 

“ But evidently not on the same machine,” said Welsh. “This is 
purple, and the other black.” 

“True; but don’t you remember I surprised them all by telling 
Roundtree he had discarded an old machine ?” 

“ Yes. Ah ! that’s a fact.” 

“Well, while you and the others were at the telephone, the mayor 
showed me up-stairs to look at the grounds from the lumber-room. 
There I saw the typewriter, examined the ribbon, and found that it 
was purple and beaten in holes, as the writing in the threatening com- 
munication shows by the badly printed letters through it.” 

“I understand so far,” said Welsh. “But what kept you so long 
in the rose-bushes when you went after your umbrella ? I thought 
you would never come.” 

Hendricks smiled. “ I went to find her revolver. I knew it must 
be somewhere near, for I had seen a freshly broken boxwood twig 
near her tracks, and knew that she would not have wished to be seen 
with the revolver after the report. I found it carefully hidden in a 
thick cluster of long grass about two yards from her footmarks. I 


774 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


would have brought it with me, but she will go for it to-night, and if 
it were not there she would suspect what I know.” 

“ You have taught me a lesson,” laughed Welsh. u I should have 
brought it away, and told the reporters about it. Shall vou arrest 
her?” 

“ No ; but I want you to watch her and report her actions to me. 
I have other things to attend to.” Hendricks was silent for several 
minutes. He rose and walked to and fro in the office, a thoughtful 
expression on his face. 

“ Anything else?” asked Captain Welsh, when the silence was be- 
coming embarrassing. 

“ I hardly know,” said Hendricks, stopping suddenly. “ But per- 
haps you can do something for me. You know this town better than I 
do. I want you to discover if there is any reason for Mrs. Walters de- 
siring to leave the city at present. Find out, if you can, what sort of 
girl she was before she married. Was she in love with Walters? and 
does she know Whidby personally — be sure about that — and has she 
ever had any affair of the heart with him ?” 

“ Ah, I get a little light !” exclaimed Welsh. “ If she is interested 
in Whidby, and knows him to be guilty, she may have played that part 
to mislead us, to establish an alibi for him, which would not be hard to 
do, since he is under watch in another part of town. Ah ! she is a 
clever girl.” 

Hendricks paid no attention to Welsh’s remark. He had begun 
his nervous walk up and down the room again. Welsh cleared his 
throat, and Hendricks caught his eye. “Oh !” he said, “ I forgot you. 
To be more frank, I am watching the movements of a distinguished 
stranger who is at my hotel under an assumed name. I know him 
well ; that is, I did in New York. I have an idea that he came by ap- 
pointment with Whidby and Colonel Warrenton. If he did, I shall 
be absolutely nonplussed, and shall have to begin all over again. What 
I have discovered at the mayor’s won’t amount to a row of pins.” 


CHAPTER X. 

The next morning after the sensation at Mayor Roundtree’s, War- 
renton called on Whidby. 

“ Well,” he began, cordially, as his friend motioned him to a seat 
in the library and stepped back to close the door, “ you’ve read about 
the shooting at the mayor’s. That ought to make you feel better : it 
is additional proof that you are not the man.” 

Whidby sat down by his friend and crossed his hands over his 
knee. 

“ On the contrary, I am more miserable to-day than ever.” 

“ Why, what is the matter ?” 

“ Annette has just left me.” 

“ She has been here again ? How very imprudent ! She ought not 
to have come.” 

“ Poor little girl !” sighed Whidby. “ She had heard about the 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


775 


shooting at the mayor's, and was so happy over it that she came right 
in, regardless of consequences.” 

“ Well, surely there is nothing in such a beautiful proof of her love 
as that to make you despondent. You ought to have been glad to see 
her happy, you ungrateful dog !” 

“ Unfortunately, she went away more miserable than she has been 
since the murder. I know I acted the fool. I broke my promise to 
you about keeping the theory of my having been hypnotized to myself. 
I could not help it, old man : don’t scold ! It is done. She expected 
me to be elated over the new developments, and with that bloody 
horror over me I simply could not- be so. She wormed it all out of 
me finally, and now she is quite undone. She turned sick and almost 
fainted in the library, and could hardly walk when she left the house. 
She went home crying at every step.” 

“ You might have known that such a thing would horrify her.” 

Whidby groaned. 

“ Poor little darling ! She begged and begged me to tell her what 
depressed me so. She knows very little about hypnotism, and when I 
tried to explain that I feared I had been made to kill my uncle with 
my own hands she shrieked and looked at me as if she thought I was 
mad.” 

“ I am awfully sorry you told her — at least until we have had the 
opinion of that hypnotic doctor. He may prove to us that you were 
not hypnotized at all.” 

Whidby rose and began to pace the floor nervously. 

“ I shall welcome any advice or opinion he can give me. I have 
just begun to think I did wrong in not reporting everything to Hen- 
dricks at the start. It may have been a very necessary clue. I mean, 
you know, the blood on the chair.” 

“ I begin to think so myself, now that the murderer has actually 
shown himself in broad daylight and attempted another life. You can 
easily prove an alibi. You were here all day yesterday, — Matthews 
and I can testify to that ; and, besides, I am pretty sure your move- 
ments are being w T atched by the police. I want you to see Hendricks, 
but not before we have an interview with Dr. Lampkin. He is at the 
Hotel Imperial. He came yesterday, and at my request has registered 
under an assumed name. I made an appointment with him to meet me 
here, and expect him every minute.” 

u What, so soon!” and Whidby shuddered. “Ugh! old man, I 
hate the subject. I am actually afraid of what he may tell me.” 

“ Never mind; nothing can be worse than the suspense you are 
suffering. You will lose your reason if something is not done.” 

The door-bell rang. “ That must be our man,” said Warrenton. 
“ Keep your seat. I told Matthews to let me answer the bell, and I 
will bring him in.” 

The next moment the colonel ushered in the visitor. He was 
short, thick-set, and about forty-five years of age. His hair was stiff, 
very abundant, and dark brown, with dashes of iron-gray. His face 
was of the round German type; his eyes were steely gray, and shot 
with strange spots of brown, which, with his long lashes, gave a 


776 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


peculiar effect to his glance. He wore a heavy beard, which he stroked 
continually, in a nervous way, and a cutaway suit of ordinary gray 
material. His manner was very easy, and inspired confidence. On 
being introduced to Whidby, he held his hand tightly for a moment 
and looked steadily into his eyes ; then he released the hand and sat 
down. 

“ I presume you have looked over the newspaper accounts I sent 
you, doctor,” said Warrenton. “ I thought they would prepare you 
for the slight additional information we are going to give you.” 

“ I had seen them all before I came,” replied the hypnotist. “ I had 
no sooner read that the dead man — pardon me, your uncle, Mr. Whidby 
— had been found murdered with that smile on his face than I wanted 
to know all about it. No other case has ever occurred that I know of, 
except that of Goetz of Berlin in ’88. But tell me, gentlemen, in 
what way I can serve you. My time is valuable. I want to say just 
here that I am afraid Hendricks, the detective, has recognized me. I 
knew him in New York, but had no idea that he had been retained 
here. I tell you this so that you may dismiss me if my presence 
could injure your case in any way. I tried to follow your instructions 
as to my disguise here, but was thrown entirely off my guard by meet- 
ing him face to face.” 

“ It does not matter now,” returned the colonel. “ There are only 
one or two points that he does not know about our side, and we have 
decided to place ourselves wholly in his hands after our interview with 
you.” 

“ I am sure that is wise,” said Dr. Lampkin. “ Hendricks is the 
most far-seeing man I ever knew. It would be unjust for any reason 
to withhold the slightest light you may be able to throw on the matter. 
Mr. Whidby, you need not tell me what your particular trouble is, 
for I think I have already guessed it from one look at your sensitive 
face. You fear that hypnotism was used by the criminal in some 
way ?” 

“ You have guessed it,” faltered Whidby. 

“ You think Mr. Strong was hypnotized just before his death ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ That you may have been hypnotized and made the murderer’s 
tool for performing the act ?” 

“ Yes.” 

" You were led to this conclusion by the blood-stain on your hand, 
on the portiere, and the drop on your cuff?” 

“ I have other reasons, which have not been made public.” 

“ May I ask what they are ? I thought you testified to your ex- 
perience in full at the inquest.’* 

“ Some things seemed to come back to me later in the day. I can’t 
say even now that I was not dreaming, but I have an indistinct remem- 
brance of being up that night, of walking from the portiere towards my 
bed, and of striking a chair and catching it with my hand to keep from 
falling. It seemed to me that I caused my shirt to fall from the chair 
to the floor, and that I picked it up and replaced it before going back 
to bed. I told Colonel Warrenton about it the next day. He went 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 777 

into my room and discovered a blood-stain just where my hand had 
been on the chair. I think it escaped the notice of the detective.” 

“ If it did, it is the first blood-stain that ever escaped him.” 

“ He did not mention it.” 

“He never mentions anything. He has been discharged from 
more than one case for looking like an idiot, but that’s part of his 
method. He knows what he is doing.” 

There was a short silence then. Whidby and Warrenton could 
see that the hypnotist was deeply engaged in thought. Presently he 
said brusquely, “ I’ll have to see you again to-morrow, or next day, 
Mr. Whidby. I can do nothing now. Will you come with me to my 
hotel, colonel ? I want to consult you on a point of law before we go 
any further. I think it will be necessary, Mr. Whidby, for you to 
get a good night’s rest before we do anything. Where do you sleep ?” 

“ Last night I began occupying my old room just across the hall,” 
replied Whidby. “ I was sleeping there when the crime was com- 
mitted, and I have had an aversion to it ever since ; but I was glad to 
find that I slept better there last night than I had up-stairs in another 
room.” 

“ You naturally would, and you were wise to move back. If you 
go to bed with the idea that you are doing even a slight thing for self- 
protection, the thought will haunt you in your sleep. It is one of 
the psychic laws. Would you mind showing me the room ?” 

“ Not at all.” The three men rose and went into Whidby’s room. 

“ Which is the chair you spoke of, and where was it placed that 
night?” asked Dr. Lampkin. 

Whidby drew it from behind a screen in a corner. 

“ You ought not to have placed it there,” remarked the hypnotist. 
“ The idea of its being pushed away out of sight will remain with 
your sub-consciousness longer than you dream of. Such things belong 
to a wonderful science that all people ought to know. Where was the 
chair standing that night, as near as you can remember ?” 

“ Exactly there.” And Whidby placed the chair within a few feet 
of the bed. 

“ Ah, yes,” said the hypnotist. “ I see where you touched it that 
night with your hand. Now, do as I direct you. Leave it exactly 
where it is, and to-night when you go to bed place your shirt on it 
precisely as you did before. All these things will aid you to sleep 
soundly, and, believe me, that is what you need above all things just 
now. Remember when you lie down to-night that I have told you 
positively, on my honor, that you will sleep better than you ever have 
slept before.” 

“You mean,” Colonel Warrenton interposed, “that it will be 
necessary for him to sleep well before — before the — the test ?” 

A slight, almost unnoticeable, look of vexation passed over the face 
of the hypnotist, but it was gone when he began to speak. 

“ Oh, no, only that it will put him in a better humor. He is 
rather too despondent for his own good. I don’t want to talk to him 
about any test now. That will be for the future. Perhaps we won’t 
have it at all.” 


778 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


CHAPTER XI. 

After Dr. Larapkin and Colonel Warrenton had taken their leave 
and were on the way down town, Dr. Lampkin said, — 

“ I must make a confession to you. What I said about wanting to 
talk over a legal point was only a pretext to see you alone about 
another matter. Your friend must be hypnotized to-night after he 
falls asleep naturally. You see, I had to get the idea of the test out 
of his mind, for that would have made him unusually wakeful. If 
he was hypnotized on the night of the murder it was done when he 
was asleep, and of course, for our test, the conditions must be the same. 
I have prepared his mind so that he will sleep soundly to-night, and, 
if everything works well, I think I can prove conclusively what his 
actions were on the night of the murder.” 

“ I see,” replied the colonel. “I place myself in your hands. 
Use me as you will.” 

“You must take him for a short drive this evening at about 
seven,” continued the doctor. “ While you are out, I shall come in 
and secrete myself somewhere up-stairs. Then you must make some 
excuse for wanting to spend the night in his house. I would have 
you occupy the bed of the murdered man, but I am afraid Whidby 
would be surprised at your choice : so stay wherever he puts you, but 
manage to send that man-servant away for the night. We shall want 
the house entirely to ourselves. About two o’clock in the morning I 
shall come to your room and arouse you. Whidby won’t awake : I 
shall see to that.” 

“You can rely on me,” the colonel promised; “but I should like 
to ask one question, if I may.” 

“ As many as you like.” 

“ From your observations so far, would you think the blood on the 
portiere, the spot on the chair, and the drop on the cuff could have 
come from Whidby’s hand after simply touching the bloody sheet?” 

“To be frank, I am. going to work on the supposition that they 
could not,” answered the hypnotist ; and he left the colonel deeply per- 
plexed. 

A few moments after two o’clock the next morning, Warrenton, 
who had been put by Whidby into the large guest-chamber over 
Strong’s old room, heard a light step on the stairs. He rose from a 
chair near the window and opened the door. It was the doctor. 

“Why,” said the visitor, in surprise, “not asleep? I thought I 
should make you furious by rousing you from sweet dreams.” 

“ Couldn’t sleep to save my life,” said the colonel, sheepishly. “ I 
tried for four solid hours, but it was impossible. It was the thought 
of the whole uncanny business, I suppose.” 

“ It is always impossible when one tries very hard to sleep,” said 
the hypnotist. He closed the door softly, and sat down on the side of 
the bed. “ The idea is to forget all about it, and nature will do the 
rest. An effort to sleep keeps the mind active, and activity of thought 
prevents sleep.” 

“ Where have you been ?” asked the colonel. 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


779 


“ Slumbering sweetly on a lounge in the library ever since Whidby 
turned in. If I had known that you were restless, I could have put 
you to sleep without even seeing you.” 

“ I shouldn’t care to have you do it,” said the colonel, with a 
smile. 

“ It’s absolutely harmless. The fact is, you often hypnotize your- 
self when you go to sleep. But we are losing time. Before we go 
down to Whidby’s room, I want to say that I have some hopes of 
demonstrating that he was not an instrument in the hands of the mur- 
derer ; but, no matter what may be the result of our investigations, it 
is clearly our duty to confer with Minard Hendricks.” 

“I fully agree with you,” replied Warren ton, “ and so will my 
friend.” 

The doctor rose. “ Whidby will be unconscious of all that takes 
place to-night, and if it should happen to be very unpleasant we need 
not tell him the particulars.” 

“ Certainly ; a good idea, indeed.” Warrenton looked down at the 
feet of the hypnotist. “ But you need slippers. Had I not better get 
you a pair?” 

“ No ; the soles of my shoes are thin, and I can tread like a cat 
when I wish. Follow me.” 

Slowly and cautiously they descended the stairs. At Whidby’s 
door the hypnotist stopped, held up his hand warningly, bent his body 
forward, and stood motionless for about two minutes. Warrenton did 
not know whether he was listening for a sound within or concentrating 
his hypnotic power on Whidby. In the dim moonlight that fell 
through the frosted glass of the front door, the colonel could see that 
the doctor’s forehead was wrinkled, and his massive brows drawn 
together. Then the hypnotist stood erect, took a deep, full breath, 
and said, “ He’s all right now : come in.” 

He turned the door-knob and entered. Whidby was lying on his 
side. In the white light from without, his face looked pale and thin. 
The doctor bent over him and said, softly, but imperatively, “ Sleep ! 
sleep ! you are sleeping now deeper and deeper. Ah, there you go !” 
Then, to the great astonishment of the colonel, he turned, laughed 
aloud, and spoke to him in an ordinary tone. 

“ Good ! so far it could not be better. Now we are ready for the 
test. Ah !” — as he noticed the colonel’s start, — “ you need not be 
afraid of his hearing us : he is as far away as if he were dead. See,” 
— the hypnotist chuckled with satisfaction as he pointed to the blood- 
stained chair near the bed and Whidby’s shirt upou it, — “ see, he has 
followed my instructions to the letter. Good ! The folding doors, I 
think, on the night of the murder, were pushed back and the curtains 
hung between : is that not so ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ All right.” The hypnotist slid the doors apart, and released the 
porti&re from the holders on each side. “Now for your role , and then 
we will begin. It may not be very pleasant for you, but you will 
oblige me if you will lie down in the bed in the next room in the 
same position as that in which they found the dead man.” 


780 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


Warren ton stared ; then he laughed awkwardly, and said, — 

“ All right : I am at your service.” 

“ Whidby won’t hurt you, I give you my word,” said the doctor. 
“ Take off your coat and throw down your suspenders, — so. Now off 
with that collar and cravat, and turn the shirt under at the neck, this 
way. I would have asked you to wear a night-shirt, but I was afraid 
you’d catch cold.” 

The colonel took off his slippers, turned down the sheets, and got 
into the bed, lying on his side with his face to the window. 

“ Was that Strong’s position ?” asked the hypnotist. 

“ As nearly as I can remember.” 

“ All right. Now let me cover you, — so. Now watch Whidby, 
and don’t stir if he comes to you, — not even if he touches you rather 
forcibly. I assure you he won’t be able to hurt you.” 

“ All right. I am ready.” 

The portiere was hanging between the two rooms, but Dr. Lamp- 
kin held it behind him as he leaned against one of the folding doors 
so that Warrenton could see Whidby’s bed. The colonel could see 
the face of the hypnotist. His great flashing eyes were fixed on the 
sleeper, his brows contracted : all his mental force seemed concentrated 
upon one idea. 

“ Come, get up, get up !” he said, presently, in a tone of command. 

Whidby caught his breath audibly, as one suddenly waking from 
sleep. He turned over, rose slowly, and put his feet on the floor. 
“ Come, stand up !” the hypnotist ordered, firmly. Whidby obeyed, 
looking as if he were wide awake. “ Do as you were told to do on 
the night of the 10th of June. Do it, I say ! don’t hesitate.” 

Slowly Whidby walked towards the window at the head of his bed, 
but within a yard of it he suddenly stopped, threw up his hand in 
front of him with a repellent gesture, and retreated backward to the 
centre of the room. “ Do it, I say !” repeated the hypnotist. Once 
more Whidby slowly approached the window, with hand outstretched, 
but again, with the same gesture, he stopped and retreated to the centre 
of the room. 

The colonel witnessed the whole proceedings. He fancied he saw 
an expression of vexation on the face of the hypnotist, every muscle 
of which seemed drawn, every vein about to burst. His large eyes 
seemed to start from their sockets. For the third time, though now no 
word was spoken, Whidby approached the window, and then, with a 
deep sigh and a strange child-like whimper, he returned to his bed and 
sat down on the side of it. 

Ten minutes passed. The hypnotist stood like a statue. A thrill 
of sudden fear passed over the colonel. Could any man be sane with 
that look on his face? Some one passed along the street whistling, 
and carrying a lantern. Its light danced about on the walls for an 
instant. In the flashes the colonel saw that Whidby had covered his 
face with his hands. 

“ Come, get up !” In the awful silence the tones sounded like a 
clap of thunder. The colonel heard them ringing in echoes in the 
hall. Whidby rose, passed the folding doors, and entered Strong’s 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


781 


room. The hypnotist released the portiere, letting it fall across the 
opening, and cautiously followed Whidby, who slowly approached the 
foot of the bed and then went round to the right and bent over the 
colonel. The young man was breathing hard, and excitedly. He felt 
the colonel’s body through the covering, and then, turning it down at 
the top, he pressed his fumbling fingers against Warrenton’s bare throat 
two or three times, then drew himself up, and, turning, went slowly 
back towards the portiere. He caught it with his right hand, drew it 
aside, and passed in. 

Dr. Lampkin was close behind him, followed by Warrenton. They 
drew the portiere aside just in time to see Whidby strike the chair 
which was between him and the bed. He grasped the top of it with 
his right hand and leaned so far forward that the others thought he 
was going to lose his balance and fall on his face. However, he 
recovered his equilibrium, and paused to replace the shirt, which had 
fallen on the floor. Then he lay down on the bed, turned his face 
from them, and closed his eyes. 

The hypnotist bent over him. “ Sleep, sleep !” he commanded. 
Then he turned to the colonel, a look of disappointment on his face. 
“ Poor chap ! I am sorry for him. It looks very much as if he had 
been made to commit the deed. I understand now what caused him 
to have a slight remembrance of touching the chair, picking up the 
shirt, and so on. When he stumbled and almost fell that night, the 
hypnotizer was so fearful of the noise his fall would make that for an 
instant he lost control of his subject ; but he regained it in a moment, 
and put him to sleep. What was that? I thought I heard a sound 
in the other room.” 

“ Don’t be frightened : it is I,” sounded from behind a screen in a 
corner, and a man in a broad-brimmed slouched hat, long whiskers, 
and linen ulster rose into view. He drew off his hat and his false 
' beard, bowed, and smiled. “ Doctor, we are not strangers,” he said. 
“ Pardon my lack of ceremony. I confess I have been spying on 
your movements. I had to see what was going on, and in my own 
way.” 

“ Minard Hendricks, by Jove !” ejaculated the doctor. “ I should 
never have dreamed of your being here at such a time. This is 
Colonel Warrenton, a friend of Mr. Whidby ’s. We were experi- 
menting.” 

Hendricks bowed to the colonel, and went on : “ I know : you 
need not tell me. I was in the colonel’s room just now, and over- 
heard your talk. I felt less like an interloper when I heard you say 
you were going to give me the benefit of your investigations, so I fol- 
lowed you down here, and have seen and heard all. I am glad to 
make your acquaintance, Colonel Warrenton, but you must both par- 
don my impatience. I am dying to make a little examination on my 
own account. Will he — is the young man sound asleep ?” 

“ Yes : he can hear only what I address to him.” 

“ Go ahead,” Warrenton joined in. “ You may do as you like 
here.” 

“ Thanks.” Hendricks lighted the gas with a soundless match, 


782 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


and, going to the window which Whidby had approached so many 
times, examined the sill closely. Then he crossed the floor to the 
corner nearest the door, and, taking a small dark-lantern from the 
pocket of his ulster, he went down on his hands and knees, and, throw- 
ing the light here and there about the corner, made a minute exami- 
nation of the carpet, and then of the plastered walls near where he 
crouched. 

Warrenton and Dr. Lampkin watched him curiously, both with 
long faces. When he had finished and closed his lantern with a snap, 
Warrenton ventured to say, — 

“ If you have discovered anything, sir, which would lead you to be- 
lieve that my young friend was not the instrument of a hypnotist, and 
not made to commit the crime, I should be very grateful. I am really 
afraid the morbid fear that such is the case will drive the poor fellow 
mad.” 

Hendricks smiled as he buttoned his ulster around him. 

“ That point, I believe, lies in Dr. Lampkin’s province. I was try- 
ing to discover traces of the murderer where I failed to search the 
other day. For the present I can tell you no more. However, I may 
say that in spying on you to-night I have discovered enough to prove 
to my mind, at least, that either the murderer was a hypnotist, or Mr. 
Whidby is a capital actor.” 

“ What do you mean ?” asked Colonel Warrenton, sharply. 

The detective smiled. 

“Only that there are two sides to the case. Either Whidby is 
guilty or some one else is; and that is what the public thinks. I 
should be glad to prove him wholly innocent. If he is guilty, he is 
listening to me now, and has gone through a superb piece of acting. 
Eh, Whidby ? But he may be asleep.” 

“ I can testify to that,” said Dr. Lampkin, uneasily. “ I don’t 
make mistakes in that line.” 

“ If you do in others,” laughed Hendricks. “ But I must be going. 
You fellows have made me lose a lot of sleep to-night.” 

“ What do you mean about my mistakes ?” asked Dr. Lampkin, 
coldly. 

“ Never mind now : I shall perhaps explain before long,” answered 
the detective. “Good-night.” And he opened the door and was 
gone. 

For several minutes Dr. Lampkin and the colonel stood looking at 
each other in silence. The pause was ended by the colonel. 

“Well, we haven’t any bright news for the poor fellow, have 
we? Shall we wake him and tell him the result of our investiga- 
tions ?” 

“ No : let him sleep till morning. It will brace him up. It is 
the first good sleep he has had for several days, I’ll venture to say. 
No, don’t tell him till I call to-morrow. I think I can put it before 
him so that he won’t brood so much over it. I have a good many 
patients who employ me simply to keep them from worrying. Some 
of them I have cured permanently of the disease, for that’s all it is, 
and a bad one. Good-night. I’ll be round here in the morning.” 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


783 


CHAPTER XII. 

The next morning about ten Miss Annette Delmar was admitted 
to the drawing-room of the Strong residence. She was thickly veiled. 
She told Matthews she wanted to see Mr. Whidby at once. As she 
took her seat she heard voices in the library across the hall. She 
recognized Whidby’s voice and Colonel Warrenton’s, and now and 
then heard masculine tones she did not recognize. She rose when 
Whidby came in, but was startled at the sight of his pale, troubled 
face. 

“ Don’t scold me,” she said, extending her hands and speaking 
tenderly. “ I could not let another day pass without seeing you after 
my weakness yesterday when you told me about your foolish fears in 
regard to hypnotism and your being the — the tool of some one with 
that power. I was so horrified, you seemed so earnest about it, and 
it shocked and frightened me so that I could not comfort you. But now 
that I have thought it all over I am not worrying at all. Dear, it is 
only imagination on your part. You have read of such things and 
fancy them possible to yourself. I don’t believe a word of it. You 
had nothing in the world to do with it. It is only an absurd idea.” 

Whidby put his arm round her and drew her to a sofa. He did 
not speak for a minute, but sat stroking her gloved hand. Then he 
said, — 

“ You ought not to come here, dear ; it is imprudent ; but it makes 
me very happy, for it is such a strong proof of your love and confi- 
dence. Unfortunately, however, my morbid fears have just been con- 
firmed. Dr. Lampkin, the hypnotic expert, of whom I spoke yester- 
day, is in the library with Colonel Warrenton. There is now no 
doubt that I was hypnotized and made to do the deed.” 

“What? Oh, Alfred!” Miss Delmar paled, and he felt her 
shudder as she leaned nearer to him. 

“There is no longer any doubt about it,” he repeated. “Dr. 
Lampkin has just been giving me a good talk against worrying over 
what can’t be helped, and really I do feel more hopeful about it. Be- 
sides, all may come out well in the end.” 

“ But — but how do you know you did it ? It’s perfectly absurd !” 

“ They put me to a test last night. I won’t trouble you with it. It 
would only try your nerves to go into details. I knew nothing about 
it. I was hypnotized after I fell asleep, and they got sufficient proof 
to convince them. Now, don’t get excited, darling : you are trembling 
all over, just as you did yesterday.” 

Miss Delmar drew her hands from his clasp and covered her face. 

“ Oh, I can’t bear it ! I simply cannot bear to think that you did 
it in — in such a horrid way. Alfred, you didn’t ! You didn’t !” 

The door-bell rang. Whidby sat staring into the frank eyes of the 
girl, unable to formulate a reply. Neither spoke just then. They 
heard Matthews go to the door and open it ; then a gentleman entered 
the drawing-room. 

“ I beg your pardon, Mr. Whidby,” he said. “I am Minard Hen- 
dricks, the detective who witnessed the proceedings in your bedroom 


784 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


last night. I thought I might find Dr. Lampkin and Colonel War- 
renton here.” 

“ They are now in the library,” answered Whidby. “ Matthews 
will notify them that you are here. Take a seat, Mr. Hendricks.” 

Miss Delmar arose and extended her hand to Whidby. 

“ I must be going,” she said, in a low voice. 

“ I beg your pardon,” said Hendricks. “ You are Miss Delmar, I 
am sure. I would not detain you, but I am certain that I can tell you 
something you would like to hear. Now, I see,” Hendricks went on, 
smiling reassuringly, “ that you think I am pretty bold to introduce 
myself in this abrupt way ; but you must remember that I am a de- 
tective, and that it is my business sometimes to introduce myself without 
much ceremony.” 

Miss Delmar smiled faintly and bowed. “ Of course ; that is your 
right, sir,” she said. 

Then Colonel Warren ton and Dr. Lampkin came in. 

“ Good-morning, gentlemen,” said Hendricks. “ I have been think- 
ing over our mutual investigations of last night, and have come to the 
conclusion that it cannot harm my proceedings to endeavor to remove a 
false impression from your minds in regard to Mr. Whidby’s actions 
when hypnotized by the criminal. I could have told you the truth last 
night, but was not quite ready to do so.” 

“You don’t think he was made to do the deed?” asked Dr. 
Lampkin. 

“ He didn’t,” broke in Miss Delmar, excitedly. “ I don’t see how 
any one could think so for a moment.” 

Hendricks smiled. “ That’s the way I like to hear it expressed,” 
he said to the young lady. “ If you had been present last night, Miss 
Delmar, you would not have let them think so.” 

“ How are you going to prove it?” asked Colonel Warrenton, hope- 
fully. “ Don’t make any mistake this time. Much depends on it. 
Whidby has been fretting his heart out over the horrible idea.” 

“ May we go into Mr. Whidby’s room now ?” asked Hendricks. 
“Miss Delmar may come also. I can explain things better to ladies 
than to men.” 

Warrenton opened the door. “Certainly; the room has been put 
to rights. Come on.” 

“ Now,” began the detective, when they had entered Whidby’s room, 
“ we won’t indulge in so much realism as to have the colonel represent- 
ing the dead man, nor Mr. Whidby playing the rdle of a peaceful sleeper, 
out of respect for Miss Delmar’s nerves ; for, while she would really 
make a better detective than any one of you, she is only a woman, 
after all, and we won’t make the picture any more gruesome than is 
necessary. For our purpose we will simply imagine that the other 
room contains a sleeper, and that Mr. Whidby is reclining on this bed. 
Now, Dr. Lampkin, when Mr. Whidby was hypnotized last night and 
you made him get up, did you notice whether his right hand was 
closed or open ?” 

“ I did not,” replied the doctor, with a sudden start and then a 
questioning stare into Hendricks’s face. 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 785 

“ Then you could not tell whether he had a knife in his hand when 
he got up on the fatal night or not ?” 

“ Ah ! No. I was a fool not to think of that ; but I could not 
watch everything : one has to concentrate the mind on a single idea to 
hypnotize successfully.” 

“ Quite right, doctor ; but, having my eyes well open last night, 
though I did have to look through a slit in that screen over there, I 
observed that Mr. Whidby, before getting up, seemed to be trying to 
push something away from him. It was a knife the murderer was 
trying to give him. And finally when Mr. Whidby did get out of bed 
his hand was not closed.” 

“ Ah ! I see,” cried Dr. Lampkin. “ I was very stupid.” 

“ Not at all,” returned the detective, with a laugh. “ I make a great 
many mistakes, and sometimes my mistakes help me to get on the right 
track in the end. That was one point you missed. Here is the other. 
Come over to this window. Do you see anything unusual here ?” 

“ I examined it early this morning,” broke in Colonel Warrenton, 
putting on his eye-glasses, “ but to save my life I could not guess 
what you were looking at last night.” 

The detective put his finger on the window-sill. 

“ Don’t you see that little crack ?” 

“ Plainly now,” said Dr. Lampkin ; “ but it means nothing to me.” 

Hendricks looked round at the circle of faces. 

“ After failing to put the knife into Mr. Whidby’s hand, the mur- 
derer stuck it — a big one it was, too — right here, with the handle up ; 
then he stood away and tried to make Mr. Whidby go to it and take 
it. He failed three times. You remember how Mr. Whidby would 
slowly draw near the window and then go back? Well, that is the 
explanation. The hypnotist could not control his subject sufficiently. 
What did he do next? He made Mr. Whidby sit on the side of the 
bed, just as he did last night, you know, for about ten minutes. Then 
he took the knife himself, hastily, perhaps angrily, for you notice the 
wood is splintered a little. If he had been perfectly cool he would 
have drawn it out carefully. He was vexed over his failure to control 
Mr. Whidby. His next move was to hypnotize Mr. Strong into a 
merry mood, and then he committed the deed. 

“ What did he do after that ? To me it is as plain as the nose on a 
man’s face, fori made a thorough examination of that corner last night. 
He stood there with his dripping knife in his hand, and succeeded in 
controlling Mr. Whidby to the extent of making him go into the other 
room. He made him touch the murdered man’s throat and return to 
bed. His plan was to make Mr. Whidby sleep till he was found next 
morning with signs of guilt on him. But, as you know, the cook, 
who usually called the two men in the morning, was absent. Mr. 
Whidby slept till late, waked of his own accord, and summoned the 
police with such an appearance of innocence that he was not arrested.” 

“ We are delighted, and very grateful to you, Mr. Hendricks,” 
said Colonel Warrenton, when the detective had concluded. “I’m 
sure it has taken a load off the minds of this young couple.” 

“ I can only say that I am so happy I cannot express my feelings 
Vol. LVII.— 50 


786 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


on the subject,” said Miss Delraar. She blushed as she caught 
Whidby’s arm, and they walked from the room. 

Hendricks found them in the library a few minutes later, Colonel 
Warrenton and Dr. Lampkin having left the house. 

“ I have explained all this for a purpose, Mr. Whidby,” said he. 
“ As a rule, I make no explanations to any one till a mystery is com- 
pletely solved ; but I must have your assistance at this point, and I 
wanted to put you into a more hopeful humor. I think I may add 
that there is no one so deeply concerned in the discovery and detection 
of the criminal as you are.” 

“ That’s true,” said Whidby, “ and I feel so pleased with what you 
have just said that I would work my fingers to the bone to help you.” 

“ Do you think, Mr. Hendricks,” asked Miss Delmar, “ that, if you 
don’t succeed in capturing the criminal, the circumstances surrounding 
the affair will reflect on Mr. Whidby ?” 

“ In a way, yes, decidedly,” was the reply. “ There is not, I 
think, quite enough evidence to convict Mr. Whidby, but the circum- 
stances are very awkward. If we don’t catch some outside party half 
the world will continue to believe Mr. Whidby guilty.” 

“ Continue?” asked Miss Delmar, with a sudden upward glance; 
“then you think ?” 

“ That public opinion is about half divided ? Yes. You see, even 
if we offer the theory of hypnotism, it won’t go down with the orthodox 
world, which doesn’t believe in such things. By reading the papers 
you will see that there is really a great deal of honest doubt of Mr. 
Whidby’s innocence in all parts of the country.” 

“ That’s true,” sighed the girl. “Oh, please let me help you in 
some way ! I’m sure I ought to be able to do something.” 

“You shall help me and Mr. Whidby very soon; but I can’t 
remain with you longer now to explain. Could you — how would it 
suit both of you to meet me here this afternoon at two o’clock ?” 

“I think I can come,” gladly answered Miss Delmar. “Father 
has forbidden me to see ” 

“ I know that very well,” smiled Hendricks. “ You see that you, 
too, have been watched.” 

“ I understood so,” replied the girl ; “ but I didn’t care. I knew 
my intentions were good.” 

“I discovered that pretty soon, — in fact, the moment I saw you 
with your veil off,” said the detective, — “ and felt ashamed of my pre- 
caution.” He had risen, and held his watch in his hand, “ Will the 
arrangement suit you, Mr. Whidby ?” 

“Perfectly,” answered Whidby; and Hendricks bowed himself 
out of the room. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

Hendricks called a cab at the door and drove to the office of 
Captain Welsh. He found Welsh pacing the floor in a fever of im- 
patience. 

“I thought you never would turn up in the world,” said Welsh, 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX . 


787 


as they took seats. “ It seems to me that everything is at a stand- 
still. The city is wild with excitement and demanding that something 
be done.” 

Hendricks shrugged his shoulders as if he had only half heard the 
remark and had been disturbed in some train of thought. He reached 
for a cigar in a box on the captain’s desk, bit the end of it, and then 
seemed to sink into a re very again. 

Welsh stared at him a moment in vexation, then he said, — 

“ I was on the watch myself at the mayor’s last night. About ten 
o’clock I saw Mrs. Walters slip out on the lawn. She came very cau- 
tiously from the rear of the house. I saw her stoop to pick up some- 
thing near where your umbrella was left, and then she returned by the 
front door.” 

Hendricks nodded slowly, but did not look up from the spot on 
the carpet at which he had been staring for several minutes. Welsh 
flushed slightly, and went on awkwardly : 

“ I had expected to find out a lot about her early life from a lady 
friend of mine, but, as bad luck, will have it, the lady has left the city 
for the summer, and I don’t know exactly where she has gone. I was 
thinking of hunting her up and going to see her, if you think ” 

Hendricks rose abruptly. 

“ I must write a letter,” he said. “ Give me some paper, 
please.” 

Welsh’s face fell as he rose and drew some writing-materials from 
a drawer and put them before the detective. 

“ Do you want me to cease my investigations ?” he asked, im- 
patiently. 

Hendricks dipped a pen into the ink-well, and as he did so he 
looked up and caught sight of the captain’s face. 

“ Oh, hang it all, captain !” he said, — “ pardon me : I have not 
heard half of what you were saying. I only caught enough at the 
start to know that you were not on the right track. Let the woman 
alone for a while. Do you remember I said that if I discovered cer- 
tain things about a mysterious stranger in the city I should have to 
begin all over again?” 

“ Yes, certainly ; but ” 

“ I have begun all over again.” And Hendricks began to write 
hurriedly. 

“ Can I help you in any way ?” 

“ I am afraid not now, captain. A little later, perhaps ; but time 
is too valuable just now for useless explanations : every minute must 
count. This is the hardest nut I ever tried to crack.” 

Welsh said nothing further. He sank into a chair and looked out 
of a window till Hendricks had finished and sealed his letter. 

“ Now,” said the detective, as he rose and grasped his hat, “ I am 
going out for a little lunch, and then I have an appointment. I shall 
see you later.” 

At two o’clock Hendricks rang the bell at the Strong homestead. 
Whidby himself opened the door. 

“ Is Miss Del mar here?” asked the detective. 


788 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


“ She has been here several minutes,” answered Whidby. “ She is 
in the library.” 

“ Good !” said Hendricks. “ Now for business,” he went on, 
cheerily, as he entered the library and bowed to Miss Delmar. “ Move 
up your chairs, both of you. There, that will do. Now, here’s what 
I want to get at. Colonel Warren ton was good enough to put me on 
to a little circumstance which he says he has not yet mentioned to you, 
Mr. Whidby, but which we must sift to the bottom. It may lead us 
to a motive for the crime, and that is what we are looking for. Do 
you happen to know if your uncle had an enemy of any sort ?” 

Whidby shook his head thoughtfully. 

“ I can’t think who it could be, if he had one,” he said. u On the 
contrary, uncle seemed to make friends with every one.” 

“ You don’t know much about Mr. Strong’s early life, which he 
spent in the mines out West, I believe?” 

“ No, I don’t. He did not speak of it often.” 

“ It is possible, you know, for him to have had an enemy even 
that far back. Matthews, with whom I have talked, remembers your 
uncle’s having had a strange visitor here a year or so ago, while you were 
at the sea-shore. It seems that Mr. Strong had a sort of quarrel with 
him, and, for some reason of his own, he requested Matthews not to 
mention the visitor to you. Now, we must find that fellow if we can.” 

“ But how are you going to do it ?” asked Miss Delmar. 

“ That’s what I’m here for,” replied Hendricks. “ And you are 
both going to help me. Now, that visitor came here and threatened 
Mr. Strong about something, so Matthews says, and one who will 
threaten a man to his face is apt to do so in other ways. Mr. Whidby, 
do you remember ever having seen your uncle receive any letters which 
seemed to disturb him at all ?” 

Whidby reflected a moment, then he looked up with a start. 

“ Yes; I had not thought of it before, but my uncle has once or 
twice acted peculiarly after receiving letters. About a month ago he 
opened a letter at the breakfast-table and seemed almost to turn sick 
over it. He was white and trembled all over. I asked him what was 
the matter, but he said he felt suddenly faint, and that was all he would 
tell me. I was concerned about him, and wanted to send for a doctor, 
but he refused to let me, and declared he was all right. He seemed so 
unstrung that I felt uneasy. I really feared his mind was affected : so 
I watched him through the curtains for a while after he went into the 
room where he keeps his papers.” 

“ What did he do there? Try — try to think of everything,” urged 
the detective, his eyes glittering as he fixed them on the young man’s 
face. 

“ He stood at the window,” went on Whidby, “and read the letter 
again. From where I was in the hall, I could see the paper quivering 
in his hands. He remained there for a long time, as if in deep thought, 
and then threw the envelope into a waste-paper basket, took down a 
file, and put the letter carefully away.” 

“ Ah, I see. Good, so far !” exclaimed Hendricks. “ Do you 
think you would know that letter again ?” 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


789 


“ I don’t know ; perhaps so. It was in a large, square, bluish 
envelope, and the sheet was of the same color, and of letter-paper size.” 

“ I am glad you remember those details,” said Hendricks. “ Now 
let’s inspect that file. May we not go into the room where Mr. Strong 
kept his papers ?” 

‘ ‘ Certainly,” said Whidby. “The coast is clear. Matthews is 
staying down-stairs. I am answering the door-bell.” 

“ At this young lady’s suggestion,” said the detective, with a laugh, 
as they were crossing the hall. 

“ Pray how did you guess that, I’d like to know ?” Miss Delmar 
asked. 

“ You were afraid your father would call here, and if Mr. Whidby 
answered the bell you would have time to hide. Is not that true ?” 

“ Perfectly,” replied the girl, with a laugh. “ I’m glad he isn’t a 
famous detective. He would have found me out long ago.” 

When they had entered the little room and approached the desk, 
which was near a great iron safe by a window, Whidby started to draw 
the letter-file from a pile of books and papers on a shelf overhead, but 
the detective called out, “ Hold on ! Don’t touch it !” and he brought 
a chair and placed it under the shelf. Then he went to the window, 
raised the shade as high as it would go, and let in the sunlight ; after 
which he stepped upon the chair, and, with a hand on each end of the 
shelf, looked carefully at the books and papers on which the file rested. 

“Ah, blast his ugly picture!” he ejaculated. “He’s nobody’s 
fool !” 

“ What’s the matter ?” asked Whidby. 

“We shan’t find the letter, after all.” Hendricks lifted the file 
and stepped down to the floor. 

“ Why, you haven’t looked,” protested Miss Delmar. 

“ Yes, I have,” said the detective, in a disappointed tone. “ Those 
books and papers up there are thickly covered with dust, but the file 
is comparatively free from it.” 

“ Ah !” said Miss Delmar. “ Some one has been handling it.” 

“ Exactly ; and quite recently.” Hendricks opened the box-like 
file and began to turn over the papers fastened in by sharp-pointed 
steel prongs. “ Ah ! I see they are arranged according to date of arri- 
val. You think, Mr. Whidby, that the letter you remember noticing 
came about a month ago. Well, we must turn to about the 20th of 
June. Ah ! here is the spot ; and, by Jove ! our friend was in a hurry, 
— not so very cautious, after all.” 

“ What is it ?” asked Whidby. 

“ He has torn a letter out at this place. And it was a blue one, 
too, for he has left a tiny fragment of it on the prongs.” Hendricks 
held a minute piece of paper towards Whidby. “ Does that look like 
the paper on which that particular letter was written ?” 

“ I think so.” 

Hendricks nodded, and put the torn piece into the back part of his 
watch-case. Then, taking the letter-file to the window, he laid it on 
the end of the desk, and, keeping it open at the place where the letter 
had been abstracted, he examined it closely. 


790 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


Miss Delmar drew nearer her lover. 

“ I do hope he will find the criminal. It would make me happier 
than anything in the world,” she whispered. 

“ I don’t think there is very much hope,” replied Whidby, in a 
low tone, as he stealthily pressed her hand, his eyes on the broad back 
of the detective. 

“ I think there is a great deal,” said the girl. “ Oh, I should 
simply be delighted to be able to show papa that you are innocent, 
after all ! He would never object then, you know, for you would be 
your uncle’s legal heir, and worth more money than I could ever expect 
from papa. If only ” 

“ By Jove !” Hendricks’s startled exclamation drew their eyes to 
him. He was holding the file close to his face, and examining a letter 
with his lens. 

“ What is it?” asked Whidby. 

“ B-l-o-o-d !” said Hendricks, playfully, in a deep, gurgling tone. 
“ The fellow extracted that letter within two minutes after he cut 
Strong’s throat.” 

“ How do you know ?” asked Miss Delmar. 

“ I find traces of blood on each of the two letters between which 
the missing one lay. So far, so good ! Now, there is but one course 
of action, and if that fails I shall be at sea : so, Mr. Whidby, keep 
your wits about you. The letter taken from this file must have been 
of such a nature that it would associate the writer of it with the crime. 
That means a good deal. It is quite likely that the murderer wit- 
nessed your uncle’s reception of the letter and saw him file it away ; 
otherwise he could not have gone to it so readily. Now, what we have 
to do is to find the envelope you say your uncle threw into the waste- 
paper basket.” 

“ Impossible,” said Whidby. 

“ Why ?” 

“ Matthews has been looking after the rooms since the maid went 
off, and he takes out the waste paper as soon as it accumulates. It 
must have been thrown away several weeks ago.” 

“ Where does he throw such things ?” 

“ I don’t know.” 

“ Call him.” 

Whidby rang, and in a minute Matthews came up from the 
basement. 

“ We want to find a certain blue envelope, Matthews,” the detective 
began. “ It was thrown into this basket by Mr. Strong about a month 
ago. Can you help us?” 

“ I don’t know, sir. I have been emptyin’ everythin’ of that kind 
in the cellar. I keep all the paper in one barrel and all the rags in 
another, and a junk-shop man comes every now and then ” 

“ And gives you a little something for keeping the stuff for him,” 
interrupted Hendricks. 

“ Yes, sir,” the servant nodded. 

“ Has he been here lately ?” 

“ Just a day or so before the murder, sir. I remember ” 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX . 


791 


“ Could you take Mr. Whidby and myself to his place?” said the 
detective. “We might be in time to keep our bit of evidence from 
being made up into new paper.” 

“ Yes, sir, without any trouble. His shop is on First Street, under 
the bridge. It is a pretty tough place, sir, but we can take the cars 
and get down quick enough.” 

“ I see I am to be of no further assistance,” jested Miss Delmar. 

“ I didn t quite think you would care to soil your skirts in a rag- 
man’s shop,” replied the detective. “ But as soon as we get a clue, 
Mr. Whidby may bring the news to you. We’d better be going, too.” 

Hendricks and Matthews started out at once : Whidby lingered in 
the drawing-room with Miss Delmar. 

“ If you have the time, you might stay here until we return,” said 
Whidby. “ I am sure we shan’t be long.” 

“ I’ll wait an hour, anyway,” the young lady promised. “ I am 
dying to know if you accomplish anything. But run on : they are 
waiting for you, and here comes the car.” 

In ten minutes the three men had reached the bridge spanning the 
murky river and were entering the shop indicated by Matthews. 

“ We must tell him exactly what we want,” Hendricks whispered 
to Whidby at the door. “ He hasn’t a very honest face, and if he 
thinks we have lost something of intrinsic value he may tell us a lot 
of lies. Usually they do all they can to aid a detective.” 

“ Ah ! I see,” answered Whidby. “ I should have blundered there 
if I had been alone.” 

The dealer, a little Jew, with a very crafty face, came from behind 
a counter piled up high with sacks of rags and paper. 

“ What can I do for you, gentlemen ?” he asked. 

In a few words Hendricks explained what they were searching for. 

“Ah! and you want to catch him, eh? Well, I hope you can,” 
said the Jew. “ I think I know the bags I got from dere. They are 
up in the loft. I will throw them down, and you can look through 
them here.” 

“You are very good,” said Hendricks: “that’s exactly what we 
want.” 

The Jew ran up a ladder through a hole in the ceiling, and in a 
moment three sacks filled with old paper tumbled down at their feet. 

Hendricks pointed to a clean place on the floor, and said to Mat- 
thews, “ Shake them out.” 

Matthews emptied one of the bags in a heap, and Whidby bent 
over it. 

“ No doubt about the stuff being from our house,” he said. “ Here 
is a note addressed to me, and there are some old bills of uncle’s.” 
But after five minutes’ search he declared he saw no envelope which 
looked like the one he had in mind. The second bag was searched 
without success, but the third had hardly been opened before Whidby 
picked up a large, square envelope. 

“ I think this must be it,” he said. 

“ You are right : it matches the color of the paper. They must 
have gone together,” replied the detective; and he opened the case of 


792 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


his watch and held the corner of the envelope down to the tiny bit. 
“ We are all right so far.” Hendricks walked to the front of the shop 
alone, studying, with a wrinkled brow, the envelope. Whidby paid 
the Jew for his trouble, and then joined him. 

“Can you make anything out of it?” he asked. 

“ Not a blasted thing,” replied Hendricks. “ It was mailed in 
New York. I did not expect that. At present I have the murderer’s 

handwriting, and that is all ; but ” His face darkened, and he 

clinched his fist, and swore under his breath. 

“ What is it ?” Whidby questioned. 

“ I don’t know myself,” said the detective. “ I have seen some- 
thing like this before, but I can’t tell where. By Jove! it will drive 
me crazy if I don’t make it out. There is something about this en- 
velope that is familiar, but it eludes me like the memory of a night- 
mare. But I’ll get it after a while. Leave me, you and your man. 
I’ll walk back alone. I want to tussle with this thing. I shall see 
you as soon as I come to any conclusion.” 


CHAPTER XIV. 

Half an hour afterwards the detective arrived at his hotel, and 
went up to his room. His face still wore a look of deep perplexity. 
He sat down at a window and stared at the envelope steadily for ten 
minutes. Then there was a rap at the door. It was a servant, to say 
that Captain Welsh was down-stairs, and that he was anxious to see 
him. 

“ Send him up,” said Hendricks, and he put the envelope into his 
pocket. He picked up a newspaper two or three days old, and was 
hidden behind it when the captain rapped. 

“ Come in,” the detective called out. 

“ I am sorry to disturb you,” began Welsh, “ but the truth is we 
are making so little headway that the mayor’s people are showing a 
good deal of impatience. Mrs. Roundtree says we are entirely too 
slow, and she is laying it all on me and my men. The mayor himself 
has just left my office. Of course I could not tell him what you sus- 
pected about his daughter, and ” 

“ I should think not, captain, since you yourself don’t know what 
I do or do not suspect.” And Hendricks threw his paper on the 
floor. 

“ Of course, of course ; but aren’t you really going any further 
with your investigations up there? I thought when I told you that I 
spent the night in front of the house, and saw her come out and secure 
the revolver from the grass, that ” 

Hendricks broke into a low laugh, bent forward, and rubbed his 
hands between his knees. 

“ You didn’t see me, captain, that night. We were both a pretty 
pair of fools. I recognized you in the flaming disk of your cigar a 
block away. You looked like a head-light, and I made for you as 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


793 


soon as I turned the corner. I knew the gate must be near where you 
stood.” 

“ What do you mean ?” cried Welsh, in surprise. 

u I was in Mrs. Walters’s room from half-past nine till ten o’clock 
that night, and made a thorough examination of her belongings.” 

“ Why, I was on watch at that time ! You could not have gone 
in at the front, and my men were in the rear.” 

Hendricks smiled broadly. 

“ I never go in at a back gate if I can help it. I was the driver 
of the cab that took the mayor home from his office that night. I 
overheard him ask the fellow to wait for him. I called the man into 
a bar-room, explained who I was, promised him five dollars, exchanged 
coats and hats with him, and took his cab. Of course I wore my 
whiskers. I would not be without them when I go driving on cool 
nights. I catch cold easily, and they protect my throat. 

“ I pulled up when you waved me down to tell the mayor you 
were watching his house personally, on account of your special interest 
in his family, and that you would see to it that they were not disturbed 
through the night. When the mayor got out at the side door of his 
house, I took my fare, explained that a piece of my harness had given 
way, and was tinkering with a strap under the belly of the horse when 
the mayor went in to his supper. Then I ran my rig out of sight 
behind a sort of wood-shed, and went up the back stairs to Mrs. Wal- 
ters’s room. I knew it by her dresses in the closets.” 

“ What were you looking for ?” 

“ Books, chiefly. I had found out that she had purchased a box 
of them in New York the other day, and I wanted to see them. I 
thought they might be treatises on hypnotism and things in that out- 
landish line ; but they were only modern yellow-backed novels, trans- 
lations of Emile Gaboriau, and detective stories by Doyle and Anna 
K. Green. They put me on a new scent. A light broke on me. I 
felt like a fool. I went down, got on my cab, and drove off like mad. 
I passed you at the carriage-gate and asked you the time. You told 
me, and I said I had to catch a train, and whipped up my horse.” 

“ I remember. What a blamed fool I was !” said Welsh, with a 
deep flush. “ What did you do next?” 

“ Turned the cab over to its owner, and went and had a private 
talk with the family physician of the Roundtrees. After that, to use 
slang, I kicked myself soundly, and in twenty minutes was dogging 
the footsteps of the distinguished stranger of whom I spoke to you.” 

“But don’t you think Mrs. Walters had anything to do with the 
murder?” asked Welsh. 

“ Nothing at all. Here it is in a nutshell. She will be a mother 
in about three months. In her condition she is always queerly imagi- 
native and deceitful. She’ lost a child a year ago in childbirth, and 
for several months before it was born she almost ran her family wild 
with her strange fancies. She has been reading sensational literature 
for a long time, and when that murder occurred, and her father offered 
a reward for the capture of the criminal, it struck her that the mur- 
derer would be apt to resent it. She tried to rouse the fears of her 


794 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


father and husband on this line, but, as they failed to see it her way, 
she determined to make them do so. She invented the yarn about 
having seen a man on the lawn the night she astonished them by going 
to the gate with her husband's revolver, and, following the murderer's 
idea of using a typewriter, she wrote the threatening letter to her 
father and enjoyed the excitement it caused. Later, fearing that some 
one would see through her little deception, she determined to make the 
circumstances more convincing. The detective stories she had read 
gave her the idea of pretending to be shot at. As I have shown you, 
she dampened the clay with the watering-can, made the foot-marks by 
wearing her father's slippers, shot a hole through her sleeve, hid the 
revolver in the grass, and has had a lot of fun out of our careful in- 
vestigations. If she had dreamt, however, that she herself would be 
suspected of that murder, she would have shown the white feather 
long ago." 

“ What are you going to do now?" asked Welsh, completely crest- 
fallen. 

“ I am on quite another line, and am at a stand-still. I hardly 
know what I shall do." 

“ Can I aid you in any way ?" 

“ I think not, now. I shall come round as soon as I find out 
anything tangible." 


CHAPTER XV. 

The next morning at nine o'clock Miss Delmar called at Whidby's. 

“ I have had to run for it," she said, laughingly, as the young man 
came into the drawing-room. “ I had to give papa the slip. He 
heard that I was out all day yesterday, and demanded an explanation. 
Of course I refused to tell him anything, and he ordered me not to 
show myself out of doors to-day. But when I got the telegram from 
Mr. Hendricks to meet him here at nine, I slipped out at the back 
gate, and have run nearly all the way." 

Whidby drew her to him and kissed her. 

“ You are bound to pull me out of this hole," he said. “ A week 
ago I was nearly crazy with forebodings, but now I really enjoy it." 

“ I am sure I do, almost," she laughed. “ I wonder if Mr. Hen- 
dricks can have discovered anything more. Here he comes now. I 
heard the gate click. Let me admit him." 

She went to the door, and in a moment entered with the detective. 

“He knows something new," she said laughingly to her lover. 
“ I can see it in his eyes." 

“ You certainly don't seem so perplexed as you did when I left you 
yesterday," said Whidby, as he cordially shook hands. 

“ A little nearer, that's all/' was the reply of the detective, as he 
sat down and took out the envelope they had found at the shop of the 
rag-dealer. “ You know," he went on to Whidby, “ I said yesterday 
that there was something familiar about this envelope that I couldn't 
make out. Well, last night, as I was studying over it, this large D 
in the centre of the postmark suddenly recalled an incident to my 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


795 


mind, and I must relate it to you, so that you can follow a certain 
chain of circumstances in which I am interested and which may lead 
us to something definite. 

“ Three days after I had been detained down here by the murder, 
my mother, who lives with me in New York, received a letter. Here 
it is. I will read it to you : 

“ 4 Dear Madam, — 

“ 4 An important business matter makes it necessary to wire your 
son, Mr. Minard Hendricks, at once. He and I are friends, but I have 
missed him round town lately. I was told at his club that he had left 
the city. If you will kindly send his address to me, I shall be greatly 
obliged. I am, dear madam, 

44 4 Very sincerely yours, 

“ 4 Frederick Champney, 

“ 4 234 Union Street, Brooklyn/ 

44 There seems to be nothing remarkable about that note. Do you 
think there is ?” asked Hendricks when he had finished. 

44 Not that I can see,” said Miss Delruar, deeply interested. 

44 Bather a bold thing to do, if the fellow that wrote it wanted to 
steer clear of you, I should think,” Whidby remarked. 

44 The bold things are the very ones we are less likely to suspect, as 
a rule,” said the detective. 44 But I haven’t told you how it came into 
my hands. My mother, while very old and naturally unsuspicious, 
has learned a good deal of caution from me, especially where anything 
pertains in the slightest to my profession : so she did not reply to the 
note, but sent it down here to me. I fell readily into the trap set for 
her. I could remember no one by the name of Champney, but I flat- 
tered myself it was some one who knew me better than I did him : 
so, thinking that my mother’s caution in not replying to the note had 
perhaps caused the writer some inconvenience, I wired my address, and 
at the same time wrote a cordial note of explanation and apology, 
which I mailed to the address given. 

44 The matter might then have escaped my memory, if the note had 
not left a sort of uneasy impression on my mind that I might suddenly 
be called to New York, and, as I was deeply interested in this case, I 
dreaded interruption. It was this frame of mind that caused a very 
trifling circumstance to bring back the whole thing to me. 

44 The letter of apology which I had sent after the telegram hap- 
pened to be put in an envelope bearing the business card of my hotel 
in this city, under which, being rather methodical in almost everything, 
I had written the number of my room. Well, in a few days it was 
returned to me marked 4 Not Delivered.’ 

44 This at once excited a suspicion that something was wrong, — that 
some designing person, for reasons of his own, had tricked me into 
betraying my whereabouts. The telegram had not been returned. 
That showed that some one at 234 Union Street, Brooklyn, had re- 
ceived it and signed for it in due form, or I should have been advised 
of his failure to do so by the telegraph office here. The letter addressed 


796 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX . 


in the same way had been returned. That proved that Frederick 
Champney either was not there or wanted me to think he was not, and 
my curiosity was roused. But, as your case was just then becoming 
more interesting, I put the letter away for safe keeping, along with the 
note to my mother, to take up again when I was more at leisure, and 
dismissed them from my mind. However, as I said just now, there 
was something strangely familiar about the envelope we found at the 
rag-shop yesterday, and I could not for the life of me tell what it could 
be. It was not until I had left you and reached my hotel last night 
that I found out. It was simply the large capital D in the centre of 
the New York postmark, for it corresponded exactly with the big D 
in the postmark of the letter my mother had received. You smile. 
You think that a very little thing. Well, so it was; but wait. The 
D indicated the station at which the letters were posted : they had both 
been mailed in the same postal district. I knew that much, you see, 
as a starter ; but I was not satisfied. I was sure the two envelopes 
held a better clue between them, and I was bound to have it. 

“ I lay awake half the night, thinking, thinking, till I got so 
wrought up I could not reason logically at all. I knew that would do 
no one any good, so I banished thoughts of all kinds, and was getting 
into a drowsy state, in fact was almost dropping off, when suddenly an 
idea popped into my brain. 

“ I sprang up, lit the gas, and with my magnifying-glass examined 
the letter which had been returned to me from New York marked 
( Not Delivered. 7 What do you suppose I discovered ? My letter had 
been steamed and carefully opened. It was perfectly evident. I 
could see indications of its having been regummed and resealed. It is 
almost impossible to put paste on an envelope as smoothly by hand 
as it is done by a machine.” 

i( So you thought 77 began Whidby. 

“ That when the individual who had written my mother under the 
name of Frederick Champney had received the letter coming on the 
heels of my telegram, his first impulse was to return it unopened, being 
afraid the reception of it would tend to show his whereabouts. But, 
being curious to know what I had to say, he first opened it, read it, 
and then sealed and returned it. Not a bad idea, eh ? 77 

Whidby nodded. “ It failed, however, to take you in. 77 

“ And, moreover, it put me on to a substantial clue. See, here are 
the two envelopes side by side, — the one addressed to my mother and 
the other to Mr. Strong. Now for points of resemblance. The hand- 
writing, though disguised, is the same; the ink under a glass shows the 
same crystal formations ; the two letters were sent from the same postal 
station in New York ; and, though the color and quality of each enve- 
lope are different, yet under the flaps, in raised letters, are the names 
of the same retail dealers in New York. See, — Ramage and Co., Sta- 
tioners, East 14th Street. The two envelopes were purchased at the 
same shop. 77 

“ But, 77 said Whidby, “ doesn 7 t it strike you that it is rather an 
unnatural thing for a man guilty of murder to do, — to openly write 
to the mother of a detective to get his address ? 77 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


797 


“ People guilty of crime will do the most foolish things in the 
world,” Hendricks answered ; “ but I have to resort to my own vanity 
to account for his having done as he did. I flatter myself that he 
knew something of my skill in detecting crime, and once he found 
himself guilty he regarded me as the man he had most to fear. He 
discovered, as his note to my mother shows, that I was out of town. 
That made him uneasy. The thought troubled him so much that he 
simply had to satisfy his mind on that point. He supposed his little 
game with my mother would succeed, and that she would think no 
more about it after replying to his note.” 

“ Ah, yes !” exclaimed Miss Delmar, “ and when he got your letter 
and telegram it must have frightened him to find himself in direct 
correspondence with the man of all others he was most anxious to 
avoid.” 

“ Exactly,” the detective agreed ; “ and I shall lose nothing by 
what he has done, for his letter shows me where to look for him. He 
is in New York, and has been there ever since he committed the 
murder and scattered those notes about town. They were designed to 
make us think the murderer lived here.” 

“ But,” said Miss Delmar, “ surely you have overlooked the fact 
that Mr. Roundtree has received a warning since then, and that Mrs. 
Walters has been shot at by the man himself?” 

Hendricks looked a little embarrassed. 

“ I can’t explain that now,” he said ; “ but I know whereof I speak. 
He is in New York. I am going there to-night, and shall do my best 
to lift the cloud from over your two heads. If I fail, it won’t be my 
fault. I shall not leave a stone unturned.” 

“ Whether you succeed or not, we shall never forget you for all 
you have done and are trying to do,” said Miss Delmar. “ I really don’t 
know what we shall do. My father is threatening to disinherit and 
disown me, and if half the world continues to believe Mr. Whidby 
guilty we shall be miserable enough.” 

“You are, indeed, in a disagreeable situation,” said Hendricks, in 
a kindly tone. “ No one knows that better than I. To be frank, — 
though the bare fact may pain you a little, — I must tell you now that 
it has only been on my earnest assurance that I had hopes of pro- 
ducing the real criminal that I have kept Welsh and his gang from 
arresting you, Mr. Whidby.” 

There was silence for a moment. Miss Delmar changed counte- 
nance, though she strove hard to keep her self-possession. 

“ Father mentioned something about the probability of an immediate 
arrest,” she said, in a wavering tone. “ But I thought he did it out 
of spite.” 

“ No, I presume he must have got it from something the police 
have set afloat,” Hendricks replied, “ and I think you ought to know 
what to expect. But, even if they should arrest you, Mr. Whidby, 
try to put a brave face on the matter, and hope for a clear acquittal 
at a trial in court. I shall hurry up matters in New York, I promise 
you. Dr. Lampkin has agreed to join me, and together we are going 
to track the reptile.” 


798 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


“ Do you expect to find anything about the man at that Brooklyn 
address?” asked Whidby, gloomily. 

“ Perhaps so ; but it may only be a private letter-box place, and 
those people are very hard to get anything out of. As a rule, their 
business is a little off color, you know, and they dread exposure. The 
return of my letter shows that the murderer is on his guard, and he 
may steer clear of that address.” 


CHAPTER XVI. 

In the afternoon, two days later, Hendricks called at the office of 
Dr. Lampkin in New York. He was shown into an anteroom where 
half a dozen patients sat in a row against the wall, each awaiting his 
turn. Hendricks sat down at the end of the row, crossed his legs, and 
soon became deeply absorbed in thought. 

Presently he heard a cough, and, looking up, saw the doctor 
beckoning to him from the office door. Hendricks rose and went in. 

Dr. Lampkin was laughing heartily. 

“ You don’t know how comical you looked,” he said. “ You were 
sitting beside the worst old morphine reprobate in New York. He 
had a sleepy stare in his eyes, and with yours you were trying to dig 
an idea out of a spot on the carpet. Why didn’t you come right in ? 
If you had only sent up your name, you need not have waited a 
minute.” 

“ I didn’t want to get in ahead of anybody,” replied the detective, 
with a good-natured smile. “ I thought I’d take my turn, and get 
you to focus some of your magic on me.” 

“ What is your complaint ?” 

“ Stupidity. I understand you can cure a great many mental 
troubles.” 

“ How does the disease affect you ?” 

“ Keeps me from attending to business. I am continually chasing 
fancies which lead nowhere. But, jokes aside, I want you for a while 
this afternoon, if you can get off.” 

“ I’m at your service.” 

“ But the — these patients ?” 

“ Oh, my assistant can dispose of them easily. Business is very 
light to-day. Besides, I am dying to do something in the Strong 
case. The truth is, I want to help that young man out. I took a 
great liking to him the night I saw him lying there helpless, going 
through with that bloody rdle. And his girl, — Miss Delmar, — did 
you ever see her ?” 

“ You know I know her. What are you talking about?” 

“ That’s a fact. I had forgotten. She is simply lovely ; and I 
admire her pluck. I’d like to thrash that father of hers. But what 
do you propose ?” 

“ Have you found out anything about a hypnotist answering the 
description I have given you of our man ?” 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


799 


“ Not a thing, so far, but I don’t despair of doing so soon. But 
what are we going to do to-day ?” 

“ I want you to go over to Brooklyn with me. I think the only 
thing now is to find out how the fellow used that address.” 

“ Perhaps he lives there.” 

“ Hardly likely ; but we shall see.” 

In fifteen minutes the two men were on the bridge cars, crossing 
the river to Brooklyn. Reaching the other side, they continued on 
the elevated road to Union Street, where they alighted. Then they 
walked along the pavement, looking at the numbers on the plate-glass 
over the doors. 

“ By Jove ! there you are, — directly opposite,” exclaimed Dr. Lamp- 
kin. “ That’s two hundred and thirty-four, and no mistake about it. 
Now for an interesting climax or a downright failure.” And he 
started to cross the street. 

“ Stop, d — n it !” cried Hendricks, looking straight ahead of him 
and walking on. “ Come along.” 

“ What’s the matter?” asked the doctor, in a low tone, as he caught 
up with his companion. 

u Nothing serious ; no harm done ; but we must approach the place 
more — more casually, so to speak, than that. Suppose we had crossed 
there, some one in the house might have seen us and been aware of 
our approach.” 

“ You are right : I never thought of that. Henceforth I’m going 
to hold my tongue and act only as you direct,” said Dr. Lampkin. 

“ We’ll go to the end of the block, and cross over,” Hendricks 
returned. His brow was wrinkled, and the doctor saw that he was 
inwardly disappointed about something. They had reached the end 
of the block and crossed over before Hendricks spoke again : “ I may 
be sadly mistaken, but I am afraid we are on a wild-goose chase. The 
house looks like the respectable home of middle-class people. If it 
had been a lodging-house, or a cheap boarding-place, the outlook 
would have been more encouraging.” 

“ How do you know it isn’t one or the other ?” asked the doctor. 

“ Door-plate, for one thing ; and then it is too clean,” was the 
reply, just as they reached the steps. “ Now we’ll see what name is 
on the plate. By Jove ! hang me if it isn’t Champney ! I don’t like 
things that look so easy.” 

A servant-girl answered the ring, 

“ Does Frederick Champney live here ?” asked the detective. 

The girl stared for an instant in surprise, then she recovered her- 
self with a start, as if she had suddenly recollected something. 

“Oh, I suppose you’re the teacher,” she said. “ He is up- stairs, 
a-studyin’ his lessons. I’ll call him.” 

Hendricks bowed. 

“ We’ll wait for him in the parlor,” he said, glancing into a room 
on the right of the hall. 

“ Very well, sir. He’ll be right down.” 

The girl closed the outside door, and went up the stairs. Dr. 
Lampkin sat down, watching his companion’s face curiously. Hen- 


800 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


dricks remained standing where he could observe the stairs through 
the half-open door. He bent towards the doctor. 

“ I’ll do the talking. It is well that she takes us for some one he 

is waiting for. It may throw him off his guard, unless he suspects 

Hang it ! I feel as if I ought to have gone up to his room.” He 
put his hand into his sack-coat pocket, and, with a cautious look into 
the hall, drew out a revolver and handed it to Lampkin. “Hide 
it, but have it ready to draw. Remember, we don’t know what sort 
of man we are going to meet, nor his humor. Let me manage him; 
but if he should happen to get the drop on me, come to my assistance.” 

“ All right,” replied the doctor. “ You can depend on me.” 

Hendricks took another look into the hall. 

“ I hadn’t the slightest idea we should run up on this,” he said. 
“ I told you I wanted treatment for stupidity. Something is radically 
wrong with me. ’Sh !” 

There was a sound of footsteps on the floor overhead, a clatter on 
the stairs, and a boy eleven or twelve years of age, very neatly 
dressed, came into the room hurriedly. He stopped short, and his 
eyes widened in astonishment. 

“ I — I beg your pardon,” he stammered, flushing. “ Sarah told 
me my teacher had come — and — and wanted to see me.” 

A look of perplexity darted across the face of the detective, and 
for a moment there was an awkward pause. Then Hendricks said, — 

“We wanted to see Frederick Champney on a matter of business. 
Does he live here ?” 

“ That’s my name, sir,” said the boy, timidly. 

“ Perhaps it is your father’s also,” suggested Hendricks, in a re- 
assuring tone. 

“ My father is dead,” replied the boy. “ His name was Stephen 
H. Champney.” 

“ Then you are the only Frederick Champney in the family ?” 

“ Y-e-s, sir.” The boy spoke slowly, and then ended with a start. 
His glance wavered under the sharp gaze of the detective, whose face 
had undergone a remarkable change. When Hendricks spoke, his 
voice sounded to Dr. Lampkin strangely harsh and firm : 

“ I received a letter from this street and number. It was signed 
Frederick Champney. Did you write it?” 

The boy suddenly fell to trembling, and his face worked in an 
effort to control himself, but he hung his head in silence. Hendricks 
repeated his question, but still the boy would not reply. He looked 
towards the hall, as if he wished to escape. 

Seeing this, Hendricks stepped between him and the door. 

“ I may as well be plain with you, my boy,” he said. “I am a 
detective, legally authorized to arrest any one suspected of law-break- 
ing. A letter of very grave importance has been written over your 
name. If you know anything about it, and won’t tell me, I shall be 
compelled to arrest you on suspicion.” 

The boy stared into Hendricks’s face for an instant in abject terror ; 
then he burst into tears. He darted towards the door, but the detec- 
tive caught his arm, and drew him, struggling, back into the room. 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


801 


“ Mamma ! mamma !” shrieked the boy with all his strength, and 
he rolled on the floor in Hendricks’s clutch and beat the legs of his 
captor with his fists. Just then a white- faced, middle-aged woman ran 
into the room from the rear stairs, followed by the maid who had 
admitted them. On seeing her, and being released by the detective, 
the boy ceased his cries, ran to his mother, and hid his face in her lap. 
She could only stare at the two visitors in speechless amazement. 

Hendricks bowed very low and stammered out an explanation. 

“ I am a detective,” he said. “ A very important letter has been 
written under the address of this house and over the name of Frederick 
Champney. I can’t think this little fellow could be guilty of any 
misdemeanor, you know, madam, but from his actions it is plain to me 
that he knows something about the matter. He started to run away, 
and *1 had to hold him.” 

“ Fred !” The woman almost gasped as she forced the white face 
of the boy towards her own. “ Fred, do you know anything of what 
this man is talking about?” 

The boy darted towards her lap again, but she held him firmly in 
front of her, and shook him fiercely. 

“ Speak, I say! What is the matter with you? If you have 
been up to any devilment ” 

“ I didn’t write it, mamma,” the boy whimpered. 

“ Well, who did? What do you know about it? Speak, I tell 
you, or I’ll thrash you within an inch of your life.” 

“ Don’t be hard on him,” Hendricks interposed. “ I think I un- 
derstand. He will tell us all about it. That is the best way.” 

The boy dried his eyes, and took his head out of his mother’s apron. 
For a moment there was a deep silence as he stood hesitatingly before 
her. 

“ Uncle Tom,” faltered the boy. “ He did it. I promised him not 
to tell a soul, — not even you ; and I wouldn’t, but you made me.” 

“ Ah, I see,” said the woman, angrily, and her gray eyes flashed 
as she turned to Hendricks. “It is some of my brother’s mischief; 
but I will not have him mixing my innocent children up in his miser- 
able affairs. It is shameful, the way he has been acting !” 

“ He asked me to let him use my name,” said the boy, who had 
grown calmer. “ He told me it wasn’t anything but a joke on a friend 
of his, — a woman, who thought she was writing to a man she never 
saw. I took the answers to Uncle Tom.” 

“Outrageous!” cried the woman. “I am ashamed of my own 
name when one who bears it can do such things.” 

“ Where is he ?” asked Hendricks, with sudden craftiness of look 
and manner. “ It is only a trifling matter, that can easily be settled, 
but I’d like to see him.” 

“ He’s up-stairs, asleep, now,” the woman replied, still angrily. 
“ He’s sleeping off one of his all-night prowls around town. I have 
been willing to give him a bed and board here when he is with us, in 
spite of his being a regular disgrace to us all with his queer notions. 
Sarah,” she broke off suddenly, seeing that Hendricks had moved 
nearer the door and signalled to Dr. Lampkin, “ run up and tell him 
Vol. LVIL— 51 


802 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


to come down here, and to be quick about it. I want an explanation 
of his conduct, and I’ll have it now.” 

Hendricks sprang into the hall, and caught the girl’s arm. 

“ Where’s his room ?” he asked, under his breath. 

“ Second floor back,” answered the girl. 

Hendricks turned to the doctor. “ Quick !” he said. “ Follow 
me.” 

Mrs. Champney’s mind, however, had acted with the rapidity of 
lightning. She ran between Hendricks and the foot of the stairs, and 
with outstretched arms stood in his way. 

“ What has he done? What are you going to do with him?” she 
said. “ He is my brother, and ” 

“ Pardon me ! I must do it !” and Hendricks caught her arm, 
pushed her back towards the hall door, and, signalling to Dr. Lampkin, 
who had determined to be as agile as his friend, sprang up the stairs. 
Hendricks was as active as a greyhound, and he was half-way up the 
flight before the doctor had started. 

Dr. Lampkin caught up with him at the closed door of the back 
room on the second floor. He was trying to force it open with his 
right hand, while in the left he held his revolver. 

“ Hang him, lie’s on to us !” panted the detective. “ That kid 
made too much noise. Get out your gun, and come against the door 
with me. Quick ! we must smash it. The lock is strong.” 

They struck the door simultaneously. It did not yield at first, and 
the house shook, and resounded with the hollow noise. There was a 
startled cry from below, a woman’s voice, and then steps on the stairs. 

“ Quick ! come again !” grunted the detective ; and shoulder to 
shoulder they struck the door once more. The fastenings gave way, 
and they plunged into the room, only keeping their feet by falling 
against a bureau which had been rolled against the door, and which 
now, with its broken mirror, stood in their way. 

The room was empty. An open window told a story. Hendricks 
swore under his breath as he made his way to the window. He pointed 
to the sloping roof of a shed and a pile of boxes below. 

“ That’s the way he went. Come on ! we must not wait to run 
round the block. We are as nimble as he is. He went over that rear 
wall into the alley. I see where he dislodged some of the bricks.” 

Hendricks thrust his revolver into his coat-pocket, crawled over 
the window-sill, swung down to his full length, and then let go. Dr. 
Lampkin was in the window when Hendricks struck the roof. The 
next instant they stood together in the yard, and a minute later had 
scaled the brick wall and were in the alley. 

Vehicles and workmen were going to and fro, but the pursuers 
saw no one who appeared to be trying to escape them. The driver of 
an ice-wagon said that only a minute before a man had sprung over 
the wall, and, laughing heartily, had run towards the street on the 
right. The iceman thought he was playing a joke on some one, as he 
had often seen him about there. 

“ Come on,” said Hendricks. “ He may make for the Union Street 
Elevated Station. It is about our only chance.” 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 803 

Turning into Union Street, the pursuers made all the speed possible 
towards the station, looking about them as they went. 

When within half a block of the station, Hendricks cried out 
excitedly, — 

“ I’ll bet my life I saw him going up the steps on this side. It 
was just for an instant, as he turned the corner of the stairway. I saw 
a white-headed, slender fellow, and he was going too fast not to be 
trying to escape something. We may get Tiim after all. Hang it, 
here comes the train ! We must catch it !” 

Hendricks broke into a run, but the long train slowed up overhead 
and came to a stop just as they reached the foot of the steps. A 
wild look of mingled anger and disappointment swept over the face of 
the detective as he dashed at the stairs. Up he ran, like a deer, taking 
three or four steps at a time. It was with the greatest difficulty that 
Dr. Lampkin kept up with him. Just as Hendricks plunged through 
the swinging door leading to the train, steam was heard escaping from 
the engine. The guards on the platforms of the cars were jerking the 
bell-cord and closing the gates. 

“ Wait, for God’s sake !” yelled the detective, as he darted past the 
man who was receiving the tickets, and reached the nearest car. But 
the gates were closed, and the train was moving. The guards, as they 
swept by, stared in astonishment at the two men and motioned them 
back. 

But Hendricks did not heed their warning. Grasping the gate on 
the front end of the last car, while the guard was closing the sliding 
door of the car ahead, he swung himself first to a foothold on the 
platform, and then, before the guard could prevent it, leaped over the 
gate. 

Dr. Lampkin, determining not to be left, swung on to the platform 
of the rear car, where there was no guard, and, with some difficulty, 
slowly climbed over the iron railing. 

Hendricks smiled grimly when he saw that the doctor was safe, and, 
passing the guard, who was speechless with amazement, ran through 
the crowded car to Dr. Lampkin on the rear platform. 

“ Come with me,” he whispered, panting from his hard run. “ We 
must nab him before we reach the next station. He’ll be desperate, 
and we must cover him with our guns. He must not escape us. He 
is a regular devil !” 

Just then the guard came up. 

“ See here, what does this mean ?” he asked, sternly. “ Don’t you 
know ” 

“ Detectives,” whispered Hendricks. “ Murderer on this train. 
Let us alone. If you interfere,” — as the guard seemed to hesitate, — 
“ I’ll have you slapped into jail. Get out of the wav. — Come on, 
doctor. He is likely to be about the middle of the train. He may 
have seen us get on.” 

The train was now going at full speed. They had passed into the 
fourth car from the end, searching on each side for the fugitive, when 
they heard a startled cry from a woman at a window on the left. 

“ A man fell off!” she cried, her face pressed against the glass. At 


804 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


once the people in the car rushed over to the side she was on. The 
windows were so crowded that Hendricks could not get to them. He 
ran out on the platform of the car and looked back. A tall, gray- 
haired man, without a hat, stood on the track, leaning against the iron 
railing. He did not seem injured, for he began to walk easily along 
the narrow plank. Presently, just as the train was turning a curve, 
he lowered himself between the cross-ties and vanished. 

Hendricks turned to Lampkin. 

“ Beat !” he said, simply. “ He is the most reckless fellow I ever 
chased. I have got a mother to support, or I would follow him. But 
I can’t jump otf a flying train, even for him.” 

“ You are sensible. You would be a fool to try it,” said the 
doctor. “It’s all right for him : his neck is at stake. What next?” 

“ Get out at the first station, and go back to where he descended.” 

By this time the guards through the entire train knew that Hen- 
dricks was a detective. The one on the front of the fourth car volun- 
teered some information : 

. “ He saw you come in at the end, sir, and made a break for the 
door. I thought somethin’ was wrong with the fellow, so I tried to 
hold him back when he started over the gate, but he slipped through 
my hands like an eel. Before I knew what he was about, he was 
swingin’ down at the side of the car, as white as a corpse, but smilin’ 
all the time. Then he came to a place where the planks were wider, 
between the two railroads, and let go. It knocked him down, but he 
got up again.” 

“ Do you think it hurt him at all ?” asked Hendricks. 

“ Not a bit in the world, sir : he’s as nimble as a cat.” Then the 
guard slid the doors open, and began to call out the next station. The 
train was slowing up. 

“ Let’s be the first out,” said the detective, pressing past some men 
to the door, and drawing his friend by the arm. 

Beaching the street below, Hendricks turned back towards the 
direction whence they had come. 

“ I suppose it is about four blocks,” he said, as he started into a 
brisk walk. “ All we can do now is to go back to where he let him- 
self down from the railroad. We may pick up something there; 
though I doubt it.” 

It was easy enough to find the spot desired, for quite a crowd of 
people had gathered under the elevated track, and two policemen 
seemed to be trying to disperse them. 

“ Where did the fellow go that got off that train ?” asked Hen- 
dricks of a policeman. “lama detective.” 

Both the policemen ^stared. 

“ Was you chasin’ ’im?” asked one of them, in astonishment. 

“ Yes. Where did he go ?” 

“ He called a cab, and got in it. He said he fell off the train and 
hurt himself a little, and wanted to go home.” 

“ Did you hear the direction he gave the driver ?” 

“ No : did you, John ?” 

The other policeman shook his head. 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


805 


“ I couldn’t hear, the crowd kept up such a racket. What’s the 
chap done ?” 

Hendricks ignored the question, and at once went up in the estima- 
tion of both the policemen. 

“ Do you know the cabman ?” 

The policemen exchanged questioning glances, and then answered, 
“ No.” 

A street urchin spoke up. “ It was one of Jimmy McGuire’s rigs, 
but I don’t know who was drivin’ it.” 

“ Jimmy turns ’em off and hires new ones every day,” explained 
one of the policemen. Hendricks thanked them and turned away, a 
look of disappointment on his face. They had gone half a block 
back towards the elevated station which they had just left, before he 
spoke. Then he said, — 

“ I shall leave you, doctor : I know you want to get back to busi- 
ness, and you can’t really help me just now.” 

Dr. Lampkin understood that the detective wanted to be left alone, 
so he held out his hand. 

“ You are going to follow up that cab, I suppose,” said he, “and 
find out where the man was taken.” 

“ There would be no use in that,” Hendricks replied. “ He was 
simply driven to some railway or ferry station, and will soon be in 
New York, lost like a needle in a hay-stack. The truth is, I have got 
to find some other line to work on. If the fellow should take a 
notion to leave the city, he might never be caught, and we should not 
be able to help that young man and his girl out of their trouble. 
Good-by. I’ll see you before long.” 


CHAPTER XVII. 

Hendricks walked back to 234 Union Street, and rang the bell. 
Mrs. Champney came to the door, holding her son by the hand. She 
was pale, and her eyes were red from weeping. 

“ Come in,” she said, coldly. “ I suppose you did not catch my 
brother, and now want to search the house.” 

“ We did not catch him, that is true, madam,” replied the detective, 
as the three went into the parlor. “ But I did not come to do anything 
that would be unpleasant to you. I came chiefly to apologize for my 
roughness just now. If I had reflected, I would not have pushed 
you aside as I did ; but, as it was, it seemed our only chance of 
securing him, and we had already been delayed.” 

“ Why, you must be ” She paused. 

“ Minard Hendricks,” the detective interpolated. 

“ Good gracious !” she cried, putting her arm round her son aud 
drawing him to her. “ I knew it was you, because I have heard how 
considerate you always are with women. Is it — is it, then, so — so 
serious ? At first I hoped it was only some trifling act of misconduct ; 
but if — if — I suppose you are employed only on criminal cases. Has 
he ?” 


806 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


Hendricks sat down. 

“ I am afraid it is a very serious charge, Mrs. Champney ; but it 
is only a charge, you know : of course he has not yet been convicted.” 

The woman’s face fell, and the arm round the boy was trembling 
visibly. 

“ What has he done?” she gasped. “ You may as well let it out. 
I want to know. What has he done?” 

“ There was a certain man whom your brother hated,” replied the 
detective. “ His name was Strong, — Richard N. Strong.” 

The woman stared, then Hendricks saw her eyes waver. 

“ Yes, perhaps he did hate him. He had good reason for doing 
so : Strong robbed him of every cent of his savings when they were 
partners in mining enterprises out West years ago. That was my 
brother’s one weak point ; he was really a sort of monomaniac on the 
subject. But what has that to do with ” 

“ Strong was murdered in his bed three weeks ago,” said Hendricks, 
impressively. 

“Oh, my God ! you don’t mean it? My brother could not have 
killed him ! Tom could not have done such a thing ! Oh, Mr. Hen- 
dricks, don’t tell me it is true ! He has been enough trouble to me, 
without my having to face such a horror as that.” 

“ I am sorry to say that it looks very much as if he did it,” 
Hendricks replied. “ In fact, I have rather strong evidence against 
him.” 

Drawing her child to a sofa with her, the woman sat down. Hen- 
dricks was afraid she was going to faint, she had turned so white, but 
when he started to rise to her assistance she motioned him back. 

“Now I understand,” she said. “He went away about three 
weeks ago, and would not tell us where he had been. In fact, it irri- 
tated him when we asked about his absence. Fred !” she cried, as she 
held the boy a little way from her, “your uncle Tom has killed a man. 
He is a murderer, and will have to be executed like any other criminal. 
That’s what has been the matter with him lately. That’s why he has 
been so restless and unable to sleep, and why he is so anxious to read 
the newspapers. Poor Tom ! He used to be a good brother to me 
when I was a girl. Oh, Mr. Hendricks, I can’t bear it ! it is awful — 
awful ! — to think of what may come of it. Is there no hope ?” 

“If he is not brought to justice, an innocent man will most likely 
suffer in his place,” said Hendricks, — “ a man with the world before 
him, a young man engaged to a lovely girl. She, too, will have to 
suffer. Your brother is without doubt guilty, and I really see little 
chance for him.” 

“ You came back to search his room, I suppose,” answered the 
woman. “ You know where it is. I shall offer no objection. I want 
to do what is right. If he has done wrong deliberately, he must take 
the consequences.” 

“ I shall not search his room,” replied the detective. “ This is 
your house : you are suffering enough already. I shall not try to find, 
under your roof, evidence against him. I think I can do without it. 
I only thought you might not be unwilling to tell me something about 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 807 

his past business relations with Strong. I suppose your brother has 
given you the facts in the case?” 

“ Yes, he has often done so, and I will tell you, as well as I can, 
all about it.” The woman stroked her son’s head thoughtfully for a 
moment, then she went on : “ I really believe this Richard N. Strong 
did my brother a great wrong. They were equal partners in several 
small mining ventures in Colorado twenty years ago, and seemed to 
get along pretty well together, but it happened that just at the time 
they were trying to get possession of a certain tract of silver-mining 
land which my brother was confident would enrich them both, Tom 
was compelled to return to New York on important business of his 
own. Now, my brother, Thomas Farleigh, was known to be an ex- 
ceptionally good judge of mineral indications, and it often happened 
that when he showed interest in property the owners would refuse to 
sell at any reasonable price. So, in this case, Mr. Strong proposed to 
him that he be not known in the transfer at all, but that he leave in 
his hands his part of the purchase-money, and let the property be made 
over to him while Tom was in New York. My brother thought it a 
good idea, and consented, leaving all his savings, something over five 
thousand dollars, with Strong, simply on the assurance that on his 
return he should have a deed to a half-interest in the property. 

“ Strong no doubt meant to be honest, and I believe only an acci- 
dent to my brother prevented him from being so. On Tom’s way to 
New York he fell from a train at Cincinnati, struck his head against a 
stone, and was taken insensible to a hospital. The doctors said his 
skull was fractured, and he became insane. From the hospital I had 
him taken to a private asylum, where I remained with him as long as 
I could. After I left Cincinnati, Mr. Strong heard of the accident, 
and went to see him. My brother did not recognize him, and, 
believing that Tom would never be restored to his right mind, Mr. 
Strong said nothing to any one about the money put into his hands by 
my brother. He went ahead and organized a big company of Eastern 
capitalists to operate the mine. They struck a rich vein, and Strong 
became wealthy at once. 

“ About five years afterwards a skilful surgeon trepanned my 
brother’s skull, relieved the pressure on the brain, and restored his 
reason. Tom, of course, remembered the last transaction with his old 
partner, and, hearing of Strong’s great success, at once set about trying 
to recover an interest in his fortune. Mr. Strong was not, I believe, 
a very bad man, and he would have been willing to undo what he had 
done, but to divide his profits with my brother would have been an 
open admission of guilt : so he disputed the claim. 

“ Tom has told me often that Strong privately offered him at one 
time twenty-five thousand dollars as a settlement of all claims against 
him, but that he had indignantly refused it. Another time Strong 
offered him fifty thousand dollars. They were alone in my brother’s 
room in a hotel in Denver. Tom answered the proposal by striking 
Strong in the mouth and shooting at him as he ran down-stairs. 

“ Strong escaped unhurt, but my brother was arrested and tried for 
attempting manslaughter. At the trial Tom made a statement of his 


808 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


wrongs, but Mr. Strong brought proof that the claimant had been in 
an insane asylum and testified that he had never been wholly restored. 
He even pleaded for Tom’s release on that score, and was praised in the 
papers for so doing. My brother was let off with a small fine, but the 
wrong rankled in his mind, and for the past fifteen years he has thought 
of nothing but getting even with the man who had wronged him. 

“ He has had no regular employment, but has lived in a sort of 
hand-to-mouth way in several cities in the East and West. Most 
people thought his mind impaired, but I believe he is as sensible as 
he ever was. I have a small income, and for five years — since my 
husband died — he has lived with me. He has been studying hyp- 
notism for the last two years, and experimenting on every one who 
would allow it. At first I did not object, because it seemed to keep 
him interested ; but lately he has almost frightened me with his won- 
derful skill. He can make people do anything he wishes, and on 
Friday nights the neighbors come in this parlor to hear him talk and 
witness his experiments. They always give him money, and so I 
could not object, as it is now the only way he has of earning anything.” 

“ You say that of late he has frightened you with his experi- 
ments?” said Hendricks. “ Would you mind telling me the nature 
of some of the most objectionable ?” 

“ He seems very fond of making his hypnotized subjects imagine 
they are murdering some one, and they always go through with it in 
such a way that it makes my blood run cold. He usually has a pillow, 
a chair, or some piece of furniture, to represent the man to be killed, 
and then ” 

“ I think I know the process,” interrupted Hendricks, as if a thought 
had suddenly come into his mind. “ He would stick up a knife some- 
where, and make his subject take it of his own accord and stab the 
imaginary man.” 

“ Exactly.” 

“ He would, however, fail sometimes,” said the detective ; “ he 
would now and then be unable to control a subject.” 

“ Hot if the person had ever been hypnotized before,” replied the 
woman. “ Those people who had been under his influence more than 
once would promptly do his bidding.” 

“ I presume he sometimes called his make-believe victims by the 
name of Strong,” Hendricks remarked. “ It would be natural, after 
all he has borne.” 

“ Yes, quite frequently. Some of his friends knew the name of 
the man who had wronged him, and it became a sort of joke at the 
gatherings ; but it was no joke with Tom, and that is why I hoped 
he would not meet his old partner again. Not long ago he heard 
somehow that Strong was to be married to a pretty young lady, and it 
infuriated him beyond description. Perhaps ” 

The woman paused and looked at Hendricks suspiciously. She 
lowered her head, and began nervously to stroke the hair of the child. 
Then she said, abruptly, — 

“ Somehow, I trust you, sir. I have heard so much of your kind- 
ness to women that I feel down in my heart that you are sorry for me 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


809 


in spite of the duty you have to perform ; but I don’t want to say 
anything thoughtlessly that would go against my brother. I couldn’t 
bear to think that ” 

The woman’s eyes began to fill, and Hendricks rose. 

“ I am, indeed, in full sympathy with you, Mrs. Champney,” he 
said. “ You have had a mighty big load to bear, and if I can possibly 
make it lighter I will do so.” 

“ I thank you,” replied the woman, “ but there is only one thing I 
can ask, and I shall be grateful if you will do it for me. I want to 
know the worst as soon as possible. If — if you — arrest him, please let 
me know at once where I can go and comfort him. Poor fellow ! he is 
not so very much to blame. His whole life was ruined by that man’s 
act, and if he did kill Mr. Strong he hardly knew what he was doing.” 

“ I will keep you posted,” said Hendricks ; and he bowed and left 
the room. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

“ Be at my office at five o’clock sharp, and wait till I come. 

“ Hendricks.” 

As soon as he received this message, Dr. Lampkin turned a patient 
over to his assistant, and went down to Hendricks’s office in Park Row, 
arriving a few minutes before five. The office-boy said Hendricks had 
not come. The doctor went in and took a seat. 

An hour passed, and still there was no sign of the detective. 
Another hour dragged by. It was growing dark. The office-boy 
came in, lighted the gas, and laid down an evening paper. 

“ Any message from Mr. Hendricks yet ?” asked the doctor. 

“ No, sir.” 

“ You have no idea where he is?” 

“ No, sir.” 

“ Is there a restaurant near here ?” 

“ Just round the corner, sir.” 

“ I have had nothing to eat since lunch,” said the doctor. “ If 
Mr. Hendricks comes in, tell him he can find me there, or will meet 
me on the way back.” 

Dr. Lampkin went to the restaurant, remained there twenty minutes, 
and returned to the office. Hendricks had not arrived, nor sent any 
word of explanation. The time passed very slowly to the doctor. He 
smoked a cigar, stretched himself on a lounge near an open window, 
and, concentrating his mind upon the idea that he would wake at the 
slightest sound, allowed himself to sleep. 

At half-past eleven he was aroused. It was Hendricks’s step on the 
stairs. He opened the door, entered slowly, as if wearied, and, with a 
sigh, sank into an arm-chair. 

“ By heavens !” he exclaimed, suddenly noticing his friend on the 
lounge, “ you must forgive me, doctor, for not showing up. All the 
afternoon and evening I have been on a dead run after that chap, but 


810 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


he has given me the slip half a dozen times. I would have sent you 
a message, but I could not tell you where to meet me/’ 

“ You have not given up the chase ?” asked Dr. Lampkin. 

“ I am stumped for to-night, it seems,” was the reply. Hendricks 
rose and began to walk the floor excitedly. He paused suddenly in 
front of his friend, and, with his hands deep in his pockets, said, “ I 
was never so absolutely cut up in my life. I’d give my right arm to 
have that man, dead or alive, to-night.” 

“ Why, has anything particular happened ?” 

Hendricks took from his pocket some papers, telegrams, and letters, 
and handed one to the doctor. “ Is that not enough to make a man 
desperate ? I received it two days ago.” 

The telegram ran as follows : 

“ Mr. Whidby arrested. What shall Ido? Annette Delmar.” 

Dr. Lampkin’s face fell. 

“ That’s bad,” he said, — “ very bad indeed.” 

“ Of course it is bad,” grunted Hendricks. “ That’s why I haven’t 
seen you. I have never given any mortal such a dead close chase in 
my life, hoping every minute to be able to telegraph the little girl that 
I had nabbed the right man, and that her sweetheart was safe.” 

“But,” said Dr. Lampkin, “ why wouldn’t they wait down there? 
Surely ” 

“ That blasted blockhead Welsh ! The other day the papers began 
to ridicule him for turning the case over to a New York man, who had 
gone away without doing anything. I was afraid then that Welsh 
would weaken ; and he did the minute the Times published the truth 
about the shooting at the mayor’s and Fred Walters took his wife away 
for a change of scene. You see, that knocked the alibi theory into a 
cocked hat, and the police were obliged to lay hold of Whidby to 
satisfy the public. The poor boy has been in jail two days, and, if 
you want to weep and kick yourself for not doing more up here, read 
the little girl’s letter. I got it this morning. She wrote it soon after 
she sent the telegram.” 

Lampkin opened the envelope handed him by the detective. Hen- 
dricks turned and continued his nervous walk. 

“Dear Mr. Hendricks,” the letter ran, — “As I telegraphed 
just now, they have arrested poor dear Mr. Whidby. It seems to me 
I cannot bear any more. I am completely broken-hearted. We had 
kept up hope, knowing that you and Dr. Lampkin, two of the best men 
on earth, believed in his innocence and were trying to establish it. So 
long as we could meet occasionally, read your letters together, and hope 
for the best, it was not so very bad ; but now — oh, I could never de- 
scribe the depth of my woe ! It seems that the whole world is against 
us. As soon as I heard of the arrest, I went down to the prison in a 
cab, but they would not let me see him. The jail was surrounded by 
a great crowd, hooting and yelling with all their might. They say 
Mr. Whidby would have been mobbed if he had not been jailed 
secretly. The crowd even sneered and laughed at me, and father came 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


811 


down almost frantic with rage. He forced me into a cab and brought 
me home. I don’t know what to do. There is not even a soul who is 
willing to go on Mr. Whidby’s bond, except Colonel Warren ton, and he 
has been unable to arrange it. Every newspaper but one has declared 
editorially against the likelihood of Mr. Whidby’s innocence. Oh, if 
only he could be cleared now, what a happy, happy girl I should be ! 
If only you or Dr. Lampkin were here to advise me ! Colonel War- 
renton is good, but he is helpless ; public opinion is somewhat against 
him. If you never get the proof you are seeking, or never catch the 
real criminal, I shall still be grateful and love both you and the doctor 
to the end of my life. 

“ Annette Delmar.” 

Dr. Lampkin folded the letter with trembling hands. Hendricks 
paused in front of him, and smiled coldly. 

“ Now it is your turn to wrestle with your sympathies, old man. 
I have been at it all day.” 

“Do you think you’ll ever get within a mile of the scoundrel?” 
asked Lampkin, gloomily. 

“ I don’t know,” said Hendricks, with a frown. “ I have told you 
several times that I was a bloated ass, haven’t I? Well, get up here 
and kick me, and don’t let up till daybreak, either. At eight o’clock 
to-night I was as near our man as I am to you ; I even shook hands 
with him ; and yet God only knows where he is now.” 

“ What ! You don’t mean ” 

“Yes, I do. I mean everything. Read this.” Hendricks thrust 
a sheet of paper at the doctor. “ What do you think of that?” 

Dr. Lampkin stared at the lines in growing surprise. 

“ Minard Hendricks, Detective, New York,” the letter began, — 
“ I am the man you are looking for. I did the deed, and the game is 
up with me. I am tired of dodging you, and am ready to surrender 
like a man. I would come to you at once, but I have an engagement 
this evening that I want to fulfil before losing my liberty. I have 
agreed to give a little lecture on ‘ Hypnotism and its Practical Uses’ to 
some people at Albridge Hall, in Grand Street. It is a small place, 
but you can easily find it. I begin to talk at eight o’clock, and the 
lecture will last an hour. If you will let me finish, I shall be obliged, 
as I owe a man some money and have promised him the door receipts. 
Please take a seat in the front row, as near the centre of the hall as 
you can. You will be in tough company ; but you won’t mind that, 
if all the adventures told of you are true. You need not fear any foul 
play on my part. I have got nothing against you. You are simply 
doing your duty, and I admire you for it. 

“Sincerely yours, 

“Thomas Hampton Farleigh.” 

“Did you go?” asked Lampkin, looking up from the letter. 

Hendricks smiled grimly. “Yes, I was on hand early enough. 
It was a frightful place, a little narrow hall, used for lectures, political 
meetings, and low-class concerts. About a hundred people were present, 


812 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX , 


mostly men. You can judge what the crowd was when I say that the 
price of admission was fifteen cents. I got a seat near the centre of the 
little stage, in the first row. The drop-curtain was down, but promptly 
at eight it was drawn up. 

“ A boy came out on the stage from behind the scenes, bringing 
the lecturer’s table, and placed it near the foot-lights. The crowd 
began to applaud with sticks and umbrellas, and in the uproar our 
hero appeared, bowing and smiling, — quite at ease, I assure you. 
Really, I admired him for his coolness. He was exactly the style of 
man described by Matthews as having paid the mysterious visit to 
Strong. His hair was white, and he was very thin, sallow, and dark- 
skinned. He looked as if he had not eaten anything nor had a square 
night’s sleep for a month. 

“ He recognized me, and singled me out with a bow and a smile, 
then stepped down from the stage and held out his hand cordially. 

“ ‘ I am glad to meet you, Mr. Hendricks,’ he said. ‘ I hope my 
talk will not bore you ; that is, if you have decided to let me make it.’ 

“ ‘ Go ahead, by all means,’ I replied. ‘ I shall be interested.’ 

“He thanked me, and went back on the stage. He talked for 
twenty minutes in a very eloquent, smooth way about hypnotism, and 
called several men up to be hypnotized. He made them do a number 
of laughable things, and then asked them to take their seats in the 
audience. While he was doing this, I saw a change come over his face 
that I could not interpret. He seemed suddenly to become depressed. 
He leaned forward, with a hand on each side of his table, and said, 
i Now, gentlemen, I am going to show you a mechanical arrangement 
that will interest you.’ Then he turned and went behind the scenes. 

“ It did not take me half a minute to smell a mouse. I sprang 
over the footlights, and surprised the boy who had been assisting him 
by suddenly rushing into the dressing-room. 

“ ‘ Where is Mr. Farleigh ?’ I asked. 

“ ‘ Gone,’ the boy replied. 1 He told me to tell you he had changed 
his mind and would not wait for you. The lecture is off for to-night.’ 

“ ‘ Which way did he go ?’ I asked. 

“ ‘ The stage door, sir,’ said the boy. 

“ I tried the door. It was locked on the outside. It would have 
been folly to force it. He had escaped me. I went quietly out at the 
front door, leaving the audience impatiently waiting for the return of 
the lecturer and his ‘ mechanical arrangement.’ Since then I have been 
searching every possible hole that the man might have run into, but 
am dead tired, and have been taken in worse than I ever was before.” 

“ Remarkable,” said Dr. Lampkin, thoughtfully. “ I can’t make 
it out. Do you think he did it for the fun of the thing?” 

“ No. I’m sure he really meant to keep his word,” said Hendricks, 
“ and that something suddenly caused him to change his plans.” 

“ Perhaps it was the awful fear of the gallows brought vividly to 
his mind by seeing you there,” suggested Dr. Lampkin. 

Hendricks made no reply, but, with corrugated brow and impatient 
stride, continued his walk to and fro. 

“ Lie down here,” said the doctor. “ Relax your body, and let me 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


813 


put you to sleep. This sort of thing will do no good : you won’t be 
able to work to-morrow.” 

Hendricks threw himself on the lounge, but at the sound of foot- 
steps on the stairs sprang up expectantly. 

“ Thank God !” he muttered. The door opened, and a messenger- 
boy in blue uniform entered and handed the detective a letter. “ It is 
from our man,” said Hendricks, as he opened it. 

“ Dear Sir,” the letter said, — “ I did not want to break faith with 
you this evening, but I had to do it. The truth is, something occurred 
to me that I must attend to before giving myself up, and I was afraid 
you would not give me the time. I want as little sensation over this 
matter as possible, on account of my sister and my little nephew, whose 
name I so thoughtlessly used. Through them you have me in your 
power. I would not otherwise give up so easily. I confess I killed 
Richard N. Strong. He deliberately robbed me, and has wrecked my 
life. I heard he was about to marry a young lady, and that was ( the 
straw/ as the saying is. I hypnotized Whidby, and tried to make him 
commit the deed, but failed. My first intention was to lay the crime on 
him, but after I left the house I wrote the notes and scattered them 
about town to keep the young man from being suspected. I hated them 
both, one for stealing, and the other for being the person who would 
eventually get the benefit of my money, but I could not let another 
suffer for a deed of mine. If you will come, as soon as you get this, 
to 567 Mott Street, where I have a room, — top floor front, — you may 
do with me as you like. I shall wait for you. 

“ Thomas Hampton Farleigh.” 

u Is it a trap?” asked Dr. Lampkin, when he had read the letter. 

Hendricks was silent. 

“ Any answer, sir ?” The messenger-boy stood waiting in the open 
door-way. 

“ No. But wait,” cried the detective. “ Do you know what time 
this message was left at your office ?” 

“ About nine, sir, I think. The instructions were to deliver it 
exactly at one o’clock.” 

u Ah !” Hendricks pulled his beard thoughtfully, as he looked at 
a clock on the wall. “ You are punctual.” 

“ The man said that it must be taken exactly on time.” 

“ Tall, gray-haired, dark-skinned fellow ?” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ Has any one called to ask about it since it was left ?” 

“ No, sir. I have been in the office ever since.” 

The conversation paused for a moment ; then the detective seemed 
to collect his thoughts with a start. He gave the boy a quarter. 

“ Call a cab for us at once, as you go out. Have it at the door.” 
He turned to the doctor as the boy went down the stairs. 

“ We must go to Mott Street at once. Are you sure you feel like it ?” 

“ Nothing could please me more/ It seems to me that you have 
been doing all the work. I want to get into it.” 


814 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

Hardly a more disreputable spot could have been found in all 
New York than the immediate vicinity of the house to which they had 
been directed. Along the street were several opium dens, dimly lighted, 
and on the corner, not far away, a man was selling hot sausages from a 
steaming vessel over a charcoal fire. 

As Hendricks and the doctor were alighting from the cab near 
the house to which they were going, a solitary policeman approached, 
and was about to pass, when Hendricks called to him. The detective 
introduced himself and told the astonished fellow to stand in readiness 
near the door of No. 567. The policeman consented, evidently highly 
flattered at being in the service of the famous detective. 

As they went up the steps to the little stoop, Hendricks advised 
the policeman to pass on, so as not to be noticed by whoever opened 
the door. The detective rang. There was a faint light shining 
through the grimy transom over the door, but no sound came from 
within. 

Hendricks rang again, and when the clanging of the bell had died 
out, a door beneath the stoop opened, a chain rattled against an iron 
gate, and a woman half clad and with hair dishevelled came out 
amidst a heap of garbage and ash-barrels and glared up at them. 

“ What do ye want ?” she asked, crustily. 

“We have an appointment with a Mr. Farleigh, who has a room 
here, I think,” Hendricks replied. 

“ A purty time o’ night for it !” snarled the woman. “ But I 
promised the gintleman to let ye in, an’ so, if ye’ll wait till I come 
up, I’ll open the door.” 

In a minute she admitted them. 

“Ye was to go up to his room, — the top floor front; ye can’t miss 
it. I would go up ahead o’ ye, but I’m that stiff that ” 

“ We’ll get there all right,” Hendricks interrupted, passing her. 
“ We won’t be long. Would you mind leaving the door unlocked ?” 

“ Not at all, sir,” she replied. The detective thanked her, and went 
up the stairs. 

The door of the room in front, on the top floor, was closed. There 
was a transom over it, but no light shone through. Hendricks knocked, 
and waited. Then he put his hand on the latch. As he did so, Dr. 
Lampkin drew his revolver. 

Hendricks laughed grimly. “Put it up,” he muttered. “You 
won’t need it.” 

The door was not fastened. Hendricks pushed it open, and as he 
did so some strips of cotton batting fell to the floor from the side and 
the top. The room was very dark. The outside blinds had been 
closed, and the curtains drawn, so that no light came in from the street 
below nor from the moon above. 

The detective struck a match, and lighted the gas near the door. 
The yellow glare filled the room and revealed a gruesome sight. A 
bed stood in the right-hand corner, and on his side, his face to the 
windows, lay the body of a man. A forty-four calibre, old-style 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


815 


pistol had been tied to the back of a chair in such a way that the 
muzzle was within three inches of a dark hole in the man’s temple. 

“ Original idea !” was Hendricks’s first observation. He pointed 
to a faint line of ashes from the chair, across the bare floor, to the 
air-hole of a little stove in the fireplace. 

“ I can’t understand it,” said Dr. Lampkin, stooping to examine 
the ashes. 

Hendricks opened the door of the stove. 

“ I have never seen this method before,” he said, reflectively. “ The 
line of ashes was made by a fuse running from the tube of the pistol 
to a candle in the stove. See, here are the remains of the wick, and 
some of the tallow. The fuse was fastened in the end of the candle ; 
he lit it, closed the door of the stove, to keep the light from disturbing 
him, and lay there waiting for it to burn down to the fuse and thus 
fire the pistol. It must have been his intention to have death come 
upon him while he was asleep.” 

“ My God ! what an idea !” exclaimed Dr. Lampkin. “ I see. He 
calculated on a painless death by hypnotizing himself to sleep.” 

“ Can it be done?” asked Hendricks. 

“ Hardly,” the doctor replied. “ I don’t think the creature was 
ever born who could, in that way, put himself to sleep while facing 
eternity, especially after committing a crime. His conscience would 
not allow it.” Dr. Lampkin bent forward, and made a close exami- 
nation of the dead man’s features. “ Poor fellow !” he said. “ He 
evidently tried to sleep. I think he wanted to be found with a smile 
on his face. But he failed. Even in death he shows the awful dread 
he must have had. There is no doubt that he mentally suffered. 
Do you know what a friend of mine is doing? He is making a 
study of the features of the dead, for the purpose of scientifically 
proving to people who don’t believe in the immortality of the soul 
that there is a future life. He says if only our sight were educated 
sufficiently we could read on the faces of dead people expressions that 
could not be put there by mortal thought, — expressions that are formed 
just as the awakened soul is leaving the body. I agree with him 
that it is a great field for study. He is an artist, and has painted the 
strongest picture that I have ever seen. It is the living face of a man 
distorted by the worst of human passions, and by its side is the same 
face, after death, wearing the spiritual expression I mentioned.” 

“ I hope,” Hendricks remarked, with a shudder, as he glanced at 
the dead man’s features, “ your friend would not argue that the hor- 
rible expressions on the faces of some suicides would prove that — 
that they have no — chance, you know.” 

“ Not at all,” replied the doctor. “ He says the soul is simply 
separated from the body so hastily that there is no time for it to leave 
its real expression. But we are certainly on a gruesome subject. I 
suppose Farleigh used the cotton batting to close up the chinks in the 
door, to deaden the sound of the pistol.” 

Hendricks nodded, lowered the gas, and led his friend down to the 
street. He hastily explained to the policeman what had happened, and 
told him to stand on guard at the place till he could summon the coroner. 


816 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


“ I suppose you are going to notify the coroner the first thing you 
do,” observed Dr. Lampkin, as they were entering a telegraph office 
on Broadway. Hendricks took a blank from the desk, and, with- 
out replying, hastily wrote a message. When he had finished it, he 
handed it to his friend, with a hearty smile. 

“ That’s the first thing on the programme, and I thank God that I 
am able to do it.” 

“Miss Annette Delmar,” ran the message, — “Murderer of 
Strong just suicided, leaving complete confession. Whidby shall be 
released to-morrow. 

“Lampkin and Hendricks.” 

“ Will it be so soon as that?” the doctor asked. 

“ Yes ; a telegraphic report from the chief of police here will do 
the work. I can manage that. But the little girl will be happy 
enough when she gets this telegram.” 

“ Now you will inform the coroner, I suppose,” said Lampkin. 

“ Not before I fire a message at Whidby,” said Hendricks. “ There 
is no hurry about the other. It won’t take a coroner’s jury long to 
give a verdict when they read the confession.” 

The next day at twelve o’clock Hendricks called at Dr. Lampkin’s 
office. He found the doctor alone. 

“ It’s all right !” he exclaimed. “ I thought you’d want to feel sure 
about it, so I ran up. The news has just reached the police here that 
everything is satisfactory. Whidby is out by this time. Here’s some- 
thing you are interested in.” He handed the doctor a telegram. 

It was as follows : 

“ Minard Hendricks and Dr. Lampkin, New York : 

“ God bless you both ! I never was so happy in my life. Papa 
went with me to the jail to see Alfred. I am dying to thank you 
personally. Do come down if you possibly can. 

“ Annette Delmar.” 

Dr. Lampkin folded the telegram and put it into the envelope. 
Hendricks had thrown himself on a lounge, and was gazing up at 
the ceiling. 

“Well, shall you go?” Dr. Lampkin asked. 

“ I hardly know,” said the detective. “ It would be nice to see 
that boy and girl happy together and know that we had something 
to do with it. If I had failed to carry my point in Whidby’s case it 
would have driven me crazy : I should never have tried to do another 
piece of detective work so long as I lived. But I can’t get away 
easily just now, for I have the Sixth Avenue jeweller’s matter to dig 
at. Perhaps we can both go a little later.” 


THE END. 


NAVAL WARFARE IN 1896. 


817 


NAVAL WARFARE IN 1896 . 

T HE conditions of naval warfare are to-day largely a matter of 
speculation. More than ever before the materials, in the form 
of facts and statistics, are accessible to all ; less perhaps than ever be- 
fore can the true conclusions to be drawn from these facts and figures be 
fully realized even by the best-equipped practical authorities. The 
truth is that in the domain of naval warfare more perhaps than in any 
other of wide- reaching i importance to the world we are to-day without 
that practical information which comes only of actual experiment. 
Eighty years ago the very reverse of this was the case. The civilized 
world was then at the close of the longest and most extensive naval 
wars of which the world has any record. Its naval armament had 
not greatly changed for any practical purposes for more than one 
hundred and fifty years. Its ships, indeed, were somewhat larger and 
more swift than they had been in the days of Blake and Van Tromp, 
their cannon and ammunition more modern and effective, but in all 
essentials they were very much the same. The same conditions attached 
to their use, the same or practically the same limits were set to their 
employment, that had existed through a century and a half and had 
exercised the genius of a dozen great naval commanders. 

To-day all this is changed. The ships, the armament, the condi- 
tions, are more radically altered from what existed less than a century 
ago than these were from what had existed eighteen centuries previously. 
It is true that gunpowder had in the interval revolutionized war iu 
some respects ; yet it had not done so to half the extent, so far as naval 
operations are concerned, since brought about by the introduction of 
steam. In the time of Nelson a naval engagement was partly a matter 
of skill, indeed, but largely one of hardihood, daring, and even physi- 
cal strength on the part of the seamen engaged, very much as it had 
been at the battle of Actium, fought some eighteen hundred years before. 
Cannon, it is true, had taken the place of Greek fire and rocks, while 
muskets had superseded slings and spears, but to a large extent the 
effective force was the same, and it was the quality of the sailor as an 
individual fighter, and his skill as a hardy mariner, that, as a rule, de- 
termined the result. It would, of course, be rash to say that these 
qualities will have no place, or only a very trifling place, in the naval 
warfare of the future, but it is hardly possible that they should have 
anything like the same place that they have had in the past. The 
age is one of mechanical forces impressed into the service of man, and 
just in proportion as these take effect the influence of merely human 
strength and daring, and even of human skill, outside the rigid limits 
imposed by the new state of things, grows less important. 

It was the First Napoleon who made the cynical remark that Provi- 
dence is on the side of the biggest battalions; and, although un- 
doubtedly experience was largely crystallized in the remark, he had 
himself many instances to prove that there were not a few exceptions 
Vol. LVIL— 52 


818 


NAVAL WARFARE IN 1896. 


to the rule. It may well be questioned whether the statement will 
not be found to be far more nearly literally true of naval than of 
military operations. The big battalions, — the fully-equipped battle- 
ships, the best steaming power, the best and most far-sighted arrange- 
ments, — these, far more than mere dash and hardihood, are likely to be 
the controlling factors in the success of nations hereafter when they 
engage in naval wars. The nation which has added to efficient sailors 
and undaunted men the greatest number of ships fitted with all modern 
appliances for warfare — the best guns, the soundest armor, the most 
available steam power — may be said to have assured success. Mere 
bravery, a little more or less, will do little except in rare and unlikely 
cases ; superior skill in seamanship will but seldom have the oppor- 
tunity of making its influence felt ; even the quickness and deftness 
of expedient with which, rightly or wrongly, we as a people are apt 
to credit ourselves beyond others, will only in rare cases have a chance 
of showing themselves. It will be the ships, the guns, and possibly 
most of all the steaming power of the vessels, that will tell. 

The exact results that may be looked for as the effect of the contest 
between guns and armor which has been going on for the last twenty- 
five years are confessedly matters of debate among experts. Whether 
the chances are in favor of the cannon or of the armor is, after all, a 
point of very little importance where the guns of all naval powers are 
very much alike, and the armor of all the world’s great navies really 
differs very little on the whole. It may be taken for granted that the 
most modern cannon will penetrate all but the most modern armor 
plates, and therefore that the ships armed with the newest guns will, as 
a rule, knock holes in all but the newest ships. It is, however, im- 
portant to bear in mind that in all navies the proportion of old armored 
ships and old guns is very nearly the same, so that this fact makes 
scarcely any practical difference to-day, except, it may be, in so far as 
one nation may have greater means of turning out new armored ships 
and supplying guns of the newest pattern than another. Even this is 
not of much consequence, however, because these are not the days of 
long wars, and it is hard to see how even a naval contest could be pro- 
tracted long enough to enable any slight superiority in these respects 
to make itself felt. In another respect it matters even less, because it 
will be found that the preparedness of each nation of the civilized 
world to produce at short notice the appliances of naval warfare is 
in proportion to what they have been doing in the way of supplying 
them during the last few years, and therefore in proportion, roughly 
speaking, to what they have at command to-day. 

So far, then, as the armored ships and rifled cannon of the world’s 
navies are concerned, the position in 1896 would seem to be this, 
that they may be looked upon as efficient and dangerous in proportion 
to their size, armament, and speed. The biggest ships, carrying, as a 
rule, the most and biggest cannons, and being also encased in the 
heaviest armor to resist attack, are the most formidable, always sup- 
posing they can be on the spot where they are wanted, and the smaller 
ones in proportion to their size and speed, where extra speed is required. 
With the aid of statistics, which nowadays are ready to hand, it is a 


NAVAL WARFARE IN 1896. 


819 


comparatively easy task to ascertain how the world’s fighting fleets 
stand in these respects. Allowances, indeed, should be made in one or 
two instances, if we desired to be absolutely correct, but for the present 
purpose this is not material. The object before us is to get a fair 
general idea of the naval fighting power of the larger European nations 
in 1896, as well as of our own, and this can be done without going 
into details of naval construction. 

The armored fighting ships of all the countries of Europe to-day 
comprise a total of three hundred and one, ranging in size from about 
2500 tons to 14,900 tons. In addition to these, this country possesses 
in all, ready or nearly ready for use in war, a total of twenty-four 
armored ships, ranging in size from 1875 tons up to 10,231 tons. In 
addition to the armored fighting ships of the world’s navies, there are 
also a certain number of modern and to some extent effective war- 
vessels which have no protective armor, and of these the European 
navies possess three hundred and seventy-four, while there are in our 
own navy thirty-one such ships. Thus we may reckon that there are 
available roughly for purposes of war about three hundred and twenty- 
five armored and four hundred and five unarmored modern fighting 
ships in the navies of the world, without counting those of Asiatic 
states, or the few vessels that make up the navies of the smaller Amer- 
ican countries. We may also for practical purposes omit from calcu- 
lation the navies of the European powers too small in numbers to be 
likely to take part in any great naval wars, should such unfortunately 
arise. Thus the fighting ships of Austria, Turkey, Portugal, Denmark, 
Sweden and Norway, and even Spain, may be disregarded in con- 
sidering the available navies of the world in 1896. These embrace in 
all sixty armored ships and eighty-nine that are unprotected, leaving 
for practical consideration three hundred and four armor-clad and three 
hundred and sixteen unarmored fighting ships. There are in addition 
to these a variety of other classes of ships and vessels, such as gun- 
boats, despatch-boats, and torpedo vessels, all of which might prove 
of no inconsiderable importance in naval operations, but the limits of 
space forbid any lengthened consideration of anything but what may 
be termed the regular fighting force of the nations likely to be drawn 
into naval operations. 

Of the nations that remain on our list, Germany, Italy, and Russia 
have about the same number of vessels, protected and unprotected, 
those of Russia being, however, on the whole the largest and most 
powerful. The French fleet consists of about sixty armored and sixty- 
five u n armored war- vessels ; our own embraces twenty-four armored 
and thirty-one unarmored ships, and that of Great Britain ninety-nine 
armored and one hundred and forty-four unarmored ships. Among the 
various fleets there are, of course, diversities of armament of different 
kinds, but, as there is as yet no practical experience worth mentioning to 
enable even experts to assign positive values to these different arrange- 
ments, it may be wise to assume that, on the whole, the size, number, and 
armament of the ships of each country fairly represent their fighting 
value. Looked at from this point of view, it is evident that the available 
navy of Great Britain considerably exceeds in strength the navies of any 


820 


NAVAL WARFARE IN 1896. 


two other nations combined. Of these France and Russia in combina- 
tion would be the strongest, having between them ninety iron-clad ships 
and ninety-two unarmored vessels, probably on the whole exceeding in 
size and fully equal in equipment to those of any other continental 
European nation. If these two powers were engaged in a naval struggle 
against England, the island kingdom would have the advantage of a 
greater number of iron-clad ships and half as many more unarmored 
vessels of war as they could command in combination. It would re- 
quire the intervention of a third nation such as Germany, Italy, or the 
United States to give an absolute preponderance of armored ships to 
the coalition, and even then the unarmored war-ships of Great Britain 
would be in a majority in point of numbers and would probably have 
a still greater advantage in size and equipment. 

Such, plainly stated upon the authority of the official returns of 
the various governments, is the position numerically of the war fleets 
of the world in the beginning of 1896. It is true that it is only a 
statement of part of the truth, but it is an important part of it, and 
one which no nation can afford for a moment to lose sight of. The 
other considerations that enter into the problem of the comparative 
maritime strength of nations in case of war may be stated briefly as 
including ease of concentration at a single point, provisions for en- 
abling fleets to remain at sea, accessibility of ports for shelter, coaling, 
or repair, and the means of rapid reinstatement after damage in such 
ports; and lastly, and perhaps chiefly, the means of supplying the 
waste of war in the shape of competent seamen to man the vessels. 

It has been said that Great Britain’s weakness in case of a naval 
war would be found in the impossibility of concentrating her force. 
In proof of this it is the custom to point to her wo rid- wide commerce 
and conclude that its protection would employ a great part of her avail- 
able fleets. This is evidently a reminiscence of the wars of the Na- 
poleonic era, and is probably wholly unfounded in relation to the 
present day. The days of merchant fleets and convoys are at an end. 
They are much more definitely at an end to-day than they were in the 
time of the Alabama, and even then they were out of date. During 
the last twenty years the merchant shipping of the world has been 
rapidly changing from a sailing to a steam fleet, and for the most part 
the steam-ships of the merchant navy are fairly well able to look after 
themselves. In any case it would no longer be possible to gather the 
commerce of an ocean under the protecting wing of a man-of-war con- 
voy, and it is practically certain that no such attempt would be made. 
This would form no obstacle in the way of England concentrating her 
fleets near home. It may be said that the great and wide-spread 
colonial possessions of Britain involve the scattering of her ships over 
many oceans ; and to a certain extent this is true, but by no means to 
the extent that some people seem to think. One point, at least, is 
important : she does not scatter her iron-clad fleet to any considerable 
extent. The fleets on distant stations, such as the Pacific, Australian, 
South African, and Indian Ocean, and at ordinary times that of China, 
are made up of unarmored vessels, with a single armored cruiser of the 
first or second class as flag-ship. Britain’s iron-clad fleet is either at 


NAVAL WARFARE IN 1896. 


821 


home, or at farthest on the Mediterranean station, within easy reach 
of home. 

And for the purposes of naval warfare against European powers it 
must be admitted that Britain holds a geographical position of un- 
equalled value. Its value was demonstrated again and again in the 
early years of this century, when the combined fleets of more than 
half of Europe were arrayed against her, and her fleets were able to 
strike to north and to south, now in the Mediterranean, and now in the 
Baltic, from her central and isolated position. The changed condi- 
tions of warfare have enhanced rather than diminished this advantage. 
To strike at France in the Mediterranean, and at Russia, or even Ger- 
many, in the Baltic and at the mouth of the Elbe, would be less rather 
than more difficult for Britain to-day than it was in the days of Nelson, 
Collingwood, Duncan, and Jervis. The strength of the fleets of France 
lies, and must continue to lie, in the Mediterranean ; and there Gib- 
raltar guards the entrance, Malta lies opposite to Tunis, and Egypt, 
with its great port of Alexandria, is in the occupation of Britain. The 
Russian war-ships that are not shut into the Black Sea by the Straits 
of Constantinople are either in the far East or in the Baltic, at a dis- 
tance from its narrow entrance considerably greater than the eastern 
ports of England. Thus, from her central station it is evident that 
the island kingdom could practically hold her enemies apart and bring 
an equal or perhaps a superior force to bear against each in detail. 

Nor is this all. War, it must be borne in mind, is an exhausting 
process. Ships, men, money, would be poured out like water in any 
great naval contest of to-day. The waste of material would be enor- 
mous, and if it lasted for more than a very few months the country 
rich in men trained to the sea, rich in money, rich in mechanical ap- 
pliances and the skill to use them to the best advantage would have a 
vast advantage over others less richly endowed in these respects. And 
here Britain would have the advantage over all other countries of 
Europe, and in some respects over all countries of the world. She is 
to-day the world's carrier, and her people are almost as much as a 
century ago the world's sailors. In ship-building and all pertaining 
to the art she is to-day the workshop of Europe. She builds the iron- 
clad ships of Russia, and supplies much of the naval machinery for 
both France and Germany. Her dock-yards can turn out more sea- 
going fighting ships than all the dock-yards of the rest of Europe put 
together. 

That all these things might not avail her in case of a great naval 
war in which two or three of the nations of Europe should be banded 
against her is, of course, true, but they are all elements in any calm 
consideration of probabilities, even in such a case. It is true that 
Britain is isolated, though even the extent of her isolation may have 
been exaggerated by those who would fain believe it complete, but it 
must be remembered that she is accustomed to isolation, and far beyond 
any other European nation can afford to disregard its dangers. Standing 
on the outside fringe of the continent, she has made the sea her own 
peculiar domain as well as her own special bulwark; she holds the 
external commerce of Europe mainly in her hands, and the very fact 


822 


CRIMINAL JURISPRUDENCE. 


strengthens her incalculably on the ocean ; her ships are on every sea, 
her people are in possession of the ports and coaling-stations on or 
close to every continent. In the event of a great naval war in which 
Britain should be engaged at present it cannot reasonably be doubted 
that she is to-day in a position almost if not quite as good as ever to 
hold her own against a considerable part of a world in arms. 

Owen Hall. 


CRIMINAL JURISPRUDENCE. 

I F the above title should suggest to any reader that crimes and 
criminals present no very agreeable subject for reflection, on the 
other hand there are some facts connected with them that no American 
can afford to ignore. Notwithstanding numerous disputes concerning 
statistical details (nearly always relating to misdemeanors and statutory 
offences of minor importance), there can be no reasonable doubt of the 
continued increase of crime in the United States in much greater pro- 
portion than the growth of population. Nor is such increase confined 
to any limited district of country, but is in different degrees prevalent 
wherever judicial and prison records are kept and accessible. If this 
increase were common throughout the realm of civilization it might 
merely imply the existence of some undiscovered social intricacies 
mysteriously connected with excessive social development. But op- 
posed to any such flattering conclusion is the additional fact that crime 
has during recent years steadily diminished and still tends to diminish 
in most of the principal European states. 

Hence, unless we are willing to admit that our people are more 
criminally disposed than others, — which there is no reason to believe, 
— it follows that there are errors either in the jurisprudence or the 
penology of our criminal system, which have been measurably cor- 
rected in other countries, and which it is in the highest degree incum- 
bent on us to search out and remove. It is of no consequence whether 
such errors are antiquated relics of a former age, or the result of mis- 
taken modern legislation. If they exist they must be found, and if 
the way to do so has been successfully indicated in the recent jurispru- 
dence of other countries, it will be quite as valuable to our people as 
if due to the original genius of our own statesmen. If either through 
inattention, neglect, or erroneous legislation this country be permitted 
to retain such bad pre-eminence, increasing depredations on the public 
will not merely cause augmented loss and suffering to industrious 
people, but must inevitably lead to popular discontent and disgust at 
the supposed impotence of all legal methods, and to wide condonation 
of the extra-legal violence which already finds increasing favor in 
many parts of the country, and ominously tends to invade the oldest 
and most conservative communities. 

As has already been indicated in the April (1896) number of this 
magazine, the study of criminology naturally divides itself into that 
of criminal jurisprudence, or the treatment of the criminal before 


CRIMINAL JURISPRUDENCE. 


823 


sentence, and penology, which concerns his management and punish- 
ment afterwards. The former seeks to detect, arrest, convict, and 
assess legal punishment, the latter to inflict the penalty in conformity 
with law and sentence, but in such manner as to reform the offender 
if he be reformable, or at least to make certain that he shall be no 
worse after punishment than before ; that he shall be exposed to no 
new contamination while forcibly held in custody, and that his sub- 
sequent career shall be hampered with no new dangers by vicious in- 
timacies forced upon him by bad methods of confinement. 

Notwithstanding the thought and study bestowed upon penology 
in many countries, and the substantial advances it has made, it is still 
no doubt very imperfect. Official reports of the highest Pennsylvania 
authority abundantly prove that many of the county jails of the State 
are little better than seminaries of crime, that they are often without 
system, classification, or even separation, and are in some cases closely 
connected with the pecuniary profits of individual officials. More- 
over, a portion of even the State’s penitentiary prisoners are still 
herded together in the old congregate method, which is being more 
and more discarded elsewhere, so that convicts from all parts of the 
country are forcibly brought to mutual acquaintance, and, notwith- 
standing futile injunctions of silence, enjoy ample opportunity to in- 
struct each other in vice, and, still worse, to blackmail the repentant 
convict after his discharge. But, on the other hand, the separate 
system of confinement, originally devised anti practised in Pennsyl- 
vania, has been widely adopted and is now generally prevalent in 
several European countries, and knowledge of its advantages both to 
the prisoner and to the public has become so diffused that preparations 
are now making for its introduction in some of the most enlightened 
American States, notably in Massachusetts. In short, the Pennsyl- 
vania public has reason to hope for an early extension, in the State of 
its birth, of the method of separate confinement and individual treat- 
ment, by the construction of suitable penitentiaries, and by a closer 
superintendence of county jails, or their consolidation under the direct 
government of the commonwealth. 

But, while the continued imperfection of penology is thus freely ad- 
mitted, it is the branch of criminal jurisprudence that as yet remains 
most backward and immovable, and, being to a certain extent conserved 
by private interests, requires the most immediate attention in Pennsyl- 
vania. Penology, incomplete as it is, has long been studied and taught 
by many humane persons in all countries, and is in this State far in 
advance of penal jurisprudence. In fact, the latter has not only failed 
to receive any recent improvement, but in some respects is in worse 
condition to-day than a century ago. It requires no prolonged or very 
close examination to justify what seems such a harsh conclusion. It 
must now be regarded as axiomatic that mere severity exerts little 
remedial effect in deterring crime, and accordingly severity has been 
largely discarded. But the really deterring agencies of certainty and 
celerity of punishment have by no means been introduced in its place. 
If there be any doubt of the comparative efficacy of these agencies, 
which no one has ever publicly asserted, by all means let it be shown. 


824 


CRIMINAL JURISPRUDENCE . 


But if their value be admitted, what excuse can be offered for a legis- 
lature that has done nothing to foster them for a century past? But 
there is no doubt whatever of their deterring efficacy. It has long 
been inculcated in every language and asserted by all students, both 
from observation and experience, alike in civil and military life, that 
where the penalty is uncertain, remote, and retarded by complicated 
and dramatic legal adventures, criminals will continue to risk it, what- 
ever severity be incurred at last. 

Now, so far from increasing celerity and certainty of punishment 
in Pennsylvania, legislation has during recent years travelled back- 
ward, and interposed new obstacles and additional delays. The 
practice in these cases is antiquated and highly technical, and remains 
very much as it was centuries ago, when life was lightly taken for 
common larceny. And when to this obstacle are added new legisla- 
tive inventions of appeals and stays of execution, it almost seems as 
though the chief object of the cumbrous legal machinery was not so 
much the prompt conviction and sequestration of the criminal, as to 
interpose new delays, to disperse the witnesses, to review and rereview 
every incautious word or technical “error” of the judge, and finally 
to lead the gentle object of solicitude safely through all the intricate 
thickets of the law and turn him loose among fresh victims. 

That this language is neither fanciful nor exaggerated may easily 
be seen by a very slight review of a few of such enactments. From an 
early period in this province the county courts of oyer and terminer pos- 
sessed original and practically final jurisdiction in criminal cases. The 
judges and juries of the vicinage were deemed competent to administer 
final justice according to law, while the facts were yet fresh and 
witnesses accessible, and for more than a century and a half did so 
administer it, without appeals, procrastination, or delay, and to the 
satisfaction of several generations of our predecessors. But in 1860, 
without apparent reason, the legislature granted appeals in all criminal 
cases. 

In 1870, in order to retard or defeat punishment in a single case, 
— that of one Schoeppe, sentenced to death for murder by poison, — an 
act was obtained from the legislature giving appeals in murder cases 
as a matter of right, and requiring the Supreme Court to review the 
evidence as well as the law of the case. That vicious measure, instead 
of promoting justice, has infinitely increased the obstacles and the time 
required for final conviction, and removed farther than ever from 
malefactors the fear of punishment. And yet it is now the universal 
rule of practice in Pennsylvania, and, it is much to be feared, has 
become embedded in the Constitution of 1874. 

In 1895 the legislature extended the right of appeal to the newly 
established Superior Court in all criminal cases except homicide, — 
which last is left reviewable by the Supreme Court. The general 
result is that convicted felons of all grades at present possess a right 
of appeal to one court or the other, or to both, with stay of execution 
frequently accompanied by admission to bail. The effect, of course, 
has been to increase the expense to the counties, to multiply proceed- 
ings, to complicate and retard conviction, and in many cases, by the 


CRIMINAL JURISPRUDENCE. 


825 


dispersion of or negotiation with witnesses, to promote the criminal’s 
escape and baffle justice altogether. Even the probabilities of technical 
“ errors” are increased rather than diminished by multiplicity of pro- 
ceedings, and if the avoidance or correction of microscopic “ errors” 
of no real consequence be offered as justification for such indefinite 
reviews, postponements, and appeals, it is questionable whether more 
of them do not slip in during a protracted proceeding, dragged through 
many courts, than in one short and simple trial. 

The following are some actual causes of reversal cited in J. D. 
Lawson’s “ Leading Criminal Cases Simplified” (St. Louis, 1884) ; and, 
though they occurred in the courts of another State, they can probably 
all be paralleled in Pennsylvania : 

1. Because the clerk spelled “ breast” in the indictment “ brest.” 

2. An indictment for murder charged that the deceased did instantly 
die instead of did then and there die. 

3. One of the subpoenas had no seal on it. 

4. A witness was asked whether she had ever been in the peniten- 
tiary. 

5. The judge read the law to the jury instead of writing it down. 

6. The jury misspelt the verdict by leaving out one letter. 

7. The clerk’s record omitted to mention that the prisoner was 
present when sentenced, and the court could not condescend to ask 
him. 

The same author has well pointed out how, when a judge and jury 
have tried an offender and reached a verdict, the appellate court pro- 
ceeds to try, not the prisoner for his guilt, but the trial judge for his 
procedure. Unless the latter can show that throughout the long and 
wearisome trial he made no mistakes, the case is sent back for new 
trial, by which time the witnesses have generally disappeared. 

The consequences of prolonged discussions and voluminous judicial 
essays on such details as the empanelling of a jury, the spelling of a 
juror’s name, the initials of a witness, or the omission or misstatement 
of some legal fiction or antiquated phrase, tend not only to remove 
punishment far off from the criminal, but to depreciate the dignity 
and usefulness of courts. The decision of the court that tried the case 
comes to be of small consequence in public estimation, when it may be 
and often is reversed by some distant judge who never saw the jury or 
heard a witness. The court above, after many months of delay, often 
decides on minute points, sometimes of mere practice, which non-pro- 
fessional persons can scarcely regard except with hilarity. Hence 
frequency of appeal in criminal administration has a mischievous 
tendency to minimize the respect with which every community should 
regard its local court, and to impair the prudent reflection with which 
the people should select their judges. For what signify the qualities 
or capacity of a county judge, if he is to be a mere conduit through 
which all cases where the prisoner has any money must flow on to 
more distant courts for the only real and final decision? 

The appellate judges have frequently reprehended the class of 
frivolous “exceptions” referred to, as, for instance, Mr. Justice Wil- 
liams of the Supreme Court in an opinion on writ of error in a recent 


826 


A FELLOW-FEELING. 


murder case. But the injury has been fastened on courts and public 
alike by pernicious legislation, and it is not the mild dictum of a judge, 
but new and effective legislation and drastic rules of practice in the 
appellate courts, that must be invoked to protect the people from 
criminals and those who thrive upon them. 

Improved methods of penitential imprisonment have long claimed 
the attention of many conscientious citizens, including the present 
governor of the commonwealth, and it is freely admitted that these 

now are, and are always likely to be, worthy of their anxious care. 

But it has been a chief object of this article to remind the reader 

that jurisprudence is an equal, or even more important, branch of 

criminology, that its existing condition urgently demands improve- 
ment, that nothing possesses more deterrent efficacy than certainty and 
celerity of results, and that these are at present mischievously absent. 
Whether they can be effectually restored by the simple repeal of former 
legislative inadvertence, or require new and affirmative legislation, is 
for lawyers and statesmen to decide. B-epeal of former injudicious 
legislation would certainly accomplish much, and the remedial value 
of simple repeal has been powerfully asserted with pertinent illustra- 
tion by a great historian and statesman of our race, who, with a mind 
filled with all facts of ancient and modern history, has expressed his 
matured opinion that the annals of no race or age afford more striking 
examples of beneficial legislation than “ legislation repealing some 
former legislation.” 

I. J. Wistar. 


A FELLOW-FEELING . 

“ A N’ to-night’s the night for Jarge Freeman to be cornin’, is it? A 
poor, mis’rable creature ! It’s all he can do to be sittin’ up 
straight in his chair : he’ll never suppart no one but himself. I don’t 
see what ye’re after findin’ in him, Janey.” 

Mrs. Ann McGathern habitually spoke in a thunderous voice, but 
she raised it even higher now, to make herself heard in the front room, 
where Janey was moving about, lighting a bracket-lamp and placing 
books upon a table. 

“ I reckon she finds all she looks for,” said Mr. McGathern. He 
lay upon a box-lounge, smoking a “dudeen,” — his day-long occupation 
since receiving his pension for forty-eight years of service in the Mori- 
balt Company. 

Ann glowered at him. “ What do ye know about it, T. C.?” she 
said. T. C.’s opinions, as coming from a man who had lost his health, 
were not worth much. 

“ Janey’s not searchin’ for a husband at present,” he went on ; “ nor 
Georgy ain’t after a wife, neither : he’s only taychin’ her the branches.” 

“ The branches !” scornfully, and pounding the floor with a crow- 
bar which she had been employing to lift the kitchen stove in order to 
place a new oil-cloth beneath. “ Them two’ll not be stayin’ up in the 
branches long; they’ll be gettin’ down to the root o’ the matter, an’ 


A FELLOW-FEELING. 


827 


don’t ye forget it, T. C.” This in a tone which, to one unacquainted 
with Mrs. McGathern, would seem to indicate a belief in love and 
marriage as the basic facts of the universe. In reality, she regarded 
both as highly superfluous, though not so superfluous as sickness : that 
was more than a superfluity — it was a high crime and a misdemeanor 
besides. She could not tolerate it. Nor could she tolerate the fuss 
some people made about it, — “jist as if it wasn’t their own fault, 
failin’ into disayse.” She herself had given birth to seven children, 
Janey being the last one left at home ; but, beyond what she called 
“ the inconvaynience of the thing, stayin’ three days in your bed for 
nothin’, an’ all the world starin’ at ye with both eyes,” she minded 
“ the thing” not at all. Since Janey came into the world, twenty-seven 
years ago, Ann had never been in her bed except at night, when decent 
folks should be. But it caused her the severest mortification that a 
husband of hers should “ fall into disayse.” She really was fond of 
the old fellow, but she could never quite forgive him for not dying 
standing. 

A step was heard outside ; then a knock. Janey flew out of the 
front room, but her mother already had the door open. A big, high- 
shouldered, shiny-faced young fellow, clad in a suit of newly-washed 
jeans and wearing the miner’s lamp in his cap, stood there. It was 
Florence Freeman. 

“ George can’t come,” he said : “ he’s sick. He sent you this 
note, Janey.” 

Janey reached past her mother for the note, but Mrs. McGathern’s 
hand was nearer. 

“ Won’t ye come in, Flory?” called Mr. McGathern from his 
lounge. 

“ No ; I’m off to work on the night-shift. That there water’s gettin’ 
ahead of us.” 

“An’ will ye be pumpin’ till mornin’?” 

“That I will.” And Florence had gone. 

Mrs. McGathern banged the door shut. “ Him’s the sort o’ fellow !” 
she exclaimed. “ Look at the back an’ the legs of him. There’s bones 
there. Did ye hear him say he’d be up all night a-workin’ ? Him’s 
the kind o’ shtuff ! Where’d jarge be, do ye think, after such exercisin’ 
as that ? He’d be in his grave. Let’s see what he says.” And she 
sat down, placed the crow-bar between her knees, and looked hard at 
the superscription. 

Now, Mrs. Ann McGathern could no more read writing than the 
Latin in her prayer-book, but she had never been known to admit this 
fact, and her family dutifully assumed that she could read it if she 
would. 

“ Mother,” said Janey, “that is my note : I ought to read it first.” 

Mrs. McGathern was pleased with this remark, nevertheless she 
held on to the note for some time, turning the yellow envelope over, 
and gazing wistfully at the gummed lap. At length she handed it to 
her daughter, modifying the thunder of her voice as she said, “ What 
do ye think o’ me, that I’d be pokin’ me nose into other folkses’ letters?” 

Janey was so long in reading her note that even her father grew 


828 


A FELLOW-FEELING. 


impatient. “ What’s the matter with Georgy that he don’t come?” he 
asked. 

“ He’s real sick,” said Janey ; “ I’ll read you what he says. ‘ I am 
hardly able to take my pen in hand to tell you ’ ” 

“ Is that the beginning of it ?” shouted Ann. 

“ Yes,” faltered Janey. 

“ It’s not the true beginnin’. What comes first of all ?” 

Janey blushed to the roots of her thick black hair as she read out, 
“ Dear Janey.” 

“ What did I tell ye, T. C. ? the branches , heh ! Go on, Janey.” 

Janey went on : “ ‘ To tell you that I shall not be able to be with you 
this evening. I am sick in my bed. Have had Dr. He says I may 
not be able to leave it for some time, but I hope to get out in two days. 
My cold is much worse. Will you take my classes to-morrow ? — all 
but the first class in arithmetic ; I’ve sent for them to come to me. 
Miss Garrick will take your department. I’m sorry about your own 
lessons, for the superintendent writes me that the examinations are to 
come off next week. Try and do all you can without me. 

“ Truly yours, 

“George Freeman.” 


“ He's no good,” said Mrs. McGathern. 

“ Sure the poor fellow’s unfortunate,” said T. C., kindly, — he liked 
George Freeman better than any young man in Culm-Banks, — “ but 
there’s different kinds o’ good, ain’t there ? Maybe he’d not be much 
at pumpin’ out water, but he’s a boss hand for pumpin’ in learnin’ : hey, 
Janey ?” 

Ann McGathern helped her bulky self up with the aid of the 
crow-bar, then, flourishing it with as airy a grace as if it had been a 
bamboo cane, she uttered the word “ Learnin ' which word with its 
accompanying inflection served as a comprehensive statement of all her 
views upon educational matters. 

Janey returned to the front room. The two chairs that were drawn 
up under the lamp she set back against the wall ; she removed her 
school-books and spread the stamped woollen cover again upon the 
table, replacing the big Douay Bible, the album, and the sea-shells. 
Then she turned out the light, gathered together her books, and, passing 
through the kitchen, went up-stairs without a word. Her mother was 
in the “ but’ry,” and did not see her, but her father noticed the firm- 
set mouth and decided step of the girl. 

“ Her feelin’s is hurt,” he said to himself. “ Ann’s too hard on 
Georgy.” 

Janey sat up late over her books, but she did not study much. She 
read the little note over and over. It was such as he might have 
written to any one, — barring the “dear Janey,” — yet to her it seemed 
warm, tender, confidential. He had never written to her before, nor, 
indeed, had any man. Janey felt quite satisfied with her love-letter, 
for that it was, surely. She knew George Freeman loved her, — knew 
it as birds know spring-time while the snow yet lingers. 

And she cared too deeply for him to feel any hurt from her mother’s 


A FELLOW-FEELING. 


829 


words. Love not sure of itself makes its owner sensitive ; love well 
founded and genuine is as proof-armor even against ridicule. But not 
against harm to the loved one. So pained was Janey over the broken 
health of her teacher that she experienced no disappointment at thought 
of her possible failure to pass the long-worked-for “ permanent.” She 
knew the doctor was right. George would not be fit to go out again in 
a long time, — perhaps never. She had marked the change in him of 
late, — his weariness when he came to her in the evenings, the efforts he 
visibly put forth to surmount the strain of the hard daily school-work, 
his failing voice and walk. And he had no home, no care, no comforts 
in his illness. Mrs. Peters was kind in her way, but even a “ first- 
class” miners’ boarding-house is not a home. Florence, Mrs. McGath- 
ern’s ideal type of manhood, was a selfish, gay fellow, always out 
amusing himself at night when not at work. George had no one to 
coddle him, or to keep him in bed when he ought to stay there. He 
had the headstrong imprudence of those who feel that the world is in 
any sort depending upon them : he would be getting up in a day or 
two, crawl around to the school, and — kill himself. 

The next fortnight was an extraordinarily interesting one for Culm- 
Banks. First of all came the announcement — official — that the public 
school principal was dying. Soon after came another announcement, — 
likewise official, — from the committee on examinations for a permanent 
certificate, to the effect that of all the applicants Miss Jane McGathern 
alone had received such certificate ; moreover, by way of official com- 
pliment, the committee stated that Miss McGathern had passed the very 
best examination ever passed in the county. 

Culm-Banks looked with jealous dislike upon the McGatherns, who 
were suspected of thinking themselves more “ decent” than their neigh- 
bors : still, it could not reject its own undeniable share in the commit- 
tee’s compliment. So that when the following week brought news 
of Miss McGathern’s elevation to the vacant principal’s chair, Culm- 
Banks, though gasping with surprise, fairly smeared its soul with 
flattering unction. What other school-district within ken could boast 
of a “ lady” principal ? But would she be able to manage the hood- 
lums of the A and B room ? 

“ Janey’s hair don’t curl for nothin’,” said Joe Foggot, the cobbler. 
u An’ look at that purty square chin of her. If Janey set out to eat 
sole-leather, she’d eat sole-leather, an’ nobody could stop her.” 

Culm-Banks remembered Joe’s words a few days later, while in the 
throes of amazement over the marriage of Miss McGathern to the dying 
George Freeman, — more particularly when it became known that the 
marriage had been arranged and accomplished without the knowledge 
or consent of the bride’s parents. Who had arranged it, — Janey or 
George ? — a question sufficiently answered by these two facts : George 
could not utter a word, and he could barely make signs. So, at least, 
said Dr. Boyle, and Dr. Boyle’s word had to be taken, since George 
was such an unsociable invalid that no sympathizing visitors were ad- 
mitted into his room. Was Janey, then, really mean enough to take 
advantage of a speechless, helpless man? 

Culm-Banks saw no possible avoidance of this conclusion, after 


830 


A FELLOW-FEELING. 


pumping Mrs. Peters, Florence, Dr. Boyle, and even Father Claretie, — 
all of whom, to be sure, were dryer than wells in August ; but then 
their very dryness proved something. Father Claretie acknowledged 
that he had supposed himself summoned to administer extreme unction, 
and was as much surprised at the wedding as anybody : whatever he 
might know beyond this his position forbade him to disclose. 

But there was one question which needed no priest of the Church, 
no voice from heaven, to answer : How would Mrs. McGathern accept 
the situation ? The poorest of guessers could tell what sort of fate was 
in store for Janey. Eat sole-leather, indeed! There were tougher 
things than sole-leather to swallow. All held their breath and stood 
agog, watching to see what would happen. They were prepared for 
anything — except for what did happen. 

For weeks after the death-bed ceremony, George lay apparently at 
his last gasp. Janey’s hands were more than full. Her new position 
engrossed her greatly, and the five nominal school hours oftentimes 
stretched out to six or seven. All the time remaining out of the twenty- 
four hours she gave to George. 

“ They’ll be both buried on the same day,” prophesied Mrs. Peters. 
“ Some nights she never once shuts her eyes, then off she goes next 
morning to school with her face the color of dough. They tell me she 
gets on real good with them big scalawags, though ; never scolds ’em 
or nothin’, just looks at ’em, and they behave. But she’s working fit 
for three : it’ll surely kill her.” 

It was indeed an intense vital strain that Janey put upon herself. 
Several white hairs came to light in her black mop. She pulled them 
out furtively and threw them away : George had terribly sharp eyes for 
so sick a man. 

But it soon began to look as if he would not die immediately. He 
could sit up a little every day, and was sensible of a physical inclina- 
tion to try his legs. According to Dr. Boyle, this improvement showed 
the benefit of good nursing; but Mrs. Peters, a long-time widow, 
whose tears had never dried up, attributed all to love. “ It helps you 
along heaps to know you’ve got some one caring about you,” said she, 
wiping her eyes. “ Now all day while Janey’s at school, George is 
a-looking out for her to come back, and that kind o’ keeps him going. 
I seen how it was from the minute the wedding was fixed up : he picked 
up immejetly.” But when asked who had fixed up the wedding, Mrs. 
Peters recollected that “ her baking was a-burning.” 

One morning a closed carriage drew up in front of the boarding- 
house. “ George Freeman is going to take a drive,” said the onlooking 
neighbors. Presently a trunk was carried out. “ He must be going 
on a journey,” said they. In a few moments George came out, sup- 
ported between Janey and Mrs. Peters. By this time, in response to 
the telepathic influence which causes a deserted street to swarm on the 
instant, the entire home-keeping portion of Culm-Banks appeared at 
its front doors and gates. Were the Freemans going to move away? 
Very best thing they could do. Mighty cool in Janey, though, to run 
off and leave the school. Anybody heard of her resigning? Per- 
haps she was only going to take George away for a little change of air. 


A FELLOW-FEELING. 


831 


Rut the carriage did not drive down the hill, station-ward. It drove 
straight up hill, and stopped — oh, wonder-world ! — stopped at the 
McGatherns’. T. C. stood on one side of the gate, and Ann stood on 
the other. Janey jumped from the carriage, kissed her parents, and 
then all three helped George into the house. 

Life, so frequently compared to a theatre, bears one essential un- 
likeness to that form of amusement. In the latter, when the curtain 
goes down, the play is over ; whereas in the former, the most enter- 
taining part often takes place behind the scenes. In fact, it may be 
asserted that the most important parts are generally enacted for the 
benefit of the actors alone, — an exasperating state of things for people 
of inquiring minds. 

Long after the curtain had fallen upon this excruciatingly inter- 
esting comedy, the baffled spectators remained in the street, jabbering 
their wonderment, and gaping hopelessly towards the McGatherns’ 
closed door. By what witchery had such momentous things been ac- 
complished unawares under their noses? Mrs. Peters’s kitchen was 
crowded and her work much retarded by tousle-headed, bare-armed 
women, whose own work was also suffering, but who “ must know all 
about it.” 

Mrs. Peters, who of course knew the whole matter, would tell 
nothing. Now, in Culm-Banks to be close-mouthed about anything 
that you knew or did not know was considered “ high-toned,” and to 
be high-toned was disgrace. Mrs. Peters was worse than a thief. She 
kept to herself matters that were public property, reaping a despicable 
advantage from the fact that she could not, like a thief, be arrested and 
made to yield up her ill-gotten gains. 

But the most amazed person was Janey herself. She had been so 
ever since Florence brought the word of command from her mother 
to “ pack up straight and come back home where she belonged.” 

“ And your mother says,” added Florence, with a sly smile, “ that 
you might as well fetch George along too.” 

Once inside the house, her amazement did not decrease. In one 
corner of the front room stood a bed. Janey looked inquiringly at it. 

“ I had it set up,” explained Mrs. McGathern, “ on account o’ 
thinkin’ Jarge’d not be able to climb them steep stairs. Besides, it’ll 
be handier for ye to wait on him down here. An’ him an’ T. C. can 
be kind o’ neighborly, seein’ they’re both laid up, as ye may say.” 

T. C. winked solemnly at Janey, as if to say, “Just watch your 
mother : she can’t be quite right in her mind.” 

Yet it was a very kindly sort of madness that the old lady had 
fallen into. It manifested itself in persistent, though for the most part 
misdirected, efforts to make her invalid guest comfortable. Her own 
idea of comfort — notwithstanding her bulk — was to keep warm (“ Ann 
can stand more hate than a cat, a cricket, an’ a taykettle all together,” 
T. C. frequently remarked) : so George, spite of the mild weather and 
a burning fever, must be surrounded by hot flat-irons and loaded down 
with coverlets. When Janey protested, she was reproached with 
“ wantin’ to kill her poor husbind, after she’d been so crazy wild to get 
him.” 


832 


A FELLOW-FEELING. 


Moreover, Mrs. McGathern fought desperately against the sick 
man’s being kept on a milk diet. Many were the toothsome dishes 
thrust under his nose “ to timpt him.” 

“But he mustn’t be tempted,” Janey would say: “he’s only too 
ready to eat things when he gets the chance, and the doctor says his 
life depends on his taking nothing but milk at present.” 

“ The doctor may go to Ballyhack an’ take his milk along with 
him,” was the reply : “ do ye think I’m goin’ to see me own son-in- 
law witherin’ an’ wastin’ for the lack of a good bellyful o’ solid 
victuals ?” 

One afternoon Janey came home earlier than she was expected and 
found George feasting upon boiled corned beef and cabbage. Her 
mother sat by, watching the viands disappear, with unconcealed glee. 

The subsequent relapse of the patient caused Mrs. McGathern no 
less terror than it did Janey, but the good woman, far from admitting 
her own responsibility for it, maintained that George would never have 
survived the attack had it not been for the corned beef and cabbage. 
“He was runnin’ down so fast on that there pig food that I jist 
thought I’d build him up a bit ; if only he’d been pairmitted to finish 
his plateful it would no doubt ’a’ saved him intirely.” 

Never once since his coming had she cast blame upon him for his 
condition ; on the contrary, her commiserations were even more oppres- 
sive than her quilts. 

“Your mother would make a sick man out of a well one,” George 
remarked to Janey. 

“ She’s makin’ a well man out of a sick one,” said T. C., who sat by 
with the eternal dudeen in his mouth. Since George had become able 
to talk, the lounge in the kitchen was neglected. “ Now that the old 
lady’s decided that you’ve got a right to be ailin’, she’s a heap aisier on 
me, an’ it kind o’ makes me feel better.” 

T. C. was tremendously puzzled over the change in his wife. 
“ I’m not able to make it out, at all at all,” he said to Janey. “ She 
turned round as square as ye’d turn a corner. She niver made no 
explanaytions nor nothin’ ; she jist said, ‘ I’m goin’ to send for George 
an’ Janey to come.’ Ye may know 1 had no objections to that. An’ 
seems she’s gettin’ more tolerable toords the bodily ailments of them 
as ain’t her own people. Once ye’d think she thought dyin’ itself was 
a sin ; but let me tell you : last week I heard her inquirin’ kindly o’ 
Mrs. Tenney how her child was that’s got the big rickety head, an’ 
yesterday she was talkin’ over the fence with T’resa Martin about 
T’resa’s man, — ye know he’s got the rheumatism a- tend in’ the inside 
engine so long, — an’ your mother said, ‘ Poor fellow ! poor fellow !’ 
She raley did, Janey.” 

It was fast becoming evident that, whatever might have led Mrs. 
McGathern to invite the formerly abhorred George Freeman to her 
house, and to treat him from the start, culpably ill as he was, with 
such consideration, the motive which now inspired her conduct towards 
him could be nothing less than genuine affection. This showed itself 
in her very tones when she addressed him or spoke of him, no less 
than in her unwearying and almost pathetically inadequate efforts for 


A FELLOW-FEELING. 


833 


his well-being. She gave up trying to feed him according to her own 
notions, because the doctor and Janey scolded her so unmercifully after 
his relapse ; but she heaped on covers whenever Janey was out of the 
house, and now and then thrust in a surreptitious flat-iron, which 
George as surreptitiously thrust out. 

“ She ain’t used to sick people,” T. C. would say, apologetically ; 
“ not raley bed-sick people. She don’t know no more about how to 
care for ’em than a baby does. If ever she got sick herself it’d mor- 
tify her to death here the old fellow took his pipe out of his mouth 
and peeped into it with one eye, laughing all over as if he saw some- 
thing rarely amusing at the bottom ; “ an it’d mortify anybody to look 
at sicli a ridic’lous sight as she’d be, — ridic’lous as a hen with the 
mumps.” 

George certainly was improving. The alarming corned-beef-and- 
cabbage episode had brought on a crisis from which, to the doctor’s 
surprise, the progress was upward, not downward. Janey’s love, 
Ann’s clumsy kindness, — which amused albeit it went nigh to killing 
him, — together with T. C.’s pleasant converse, warmed his heart, and 
diverted his mind from painful consideration of his future. He did 
worry over Janey’s hard work, during her absence, but no sooner did 
that good little girl come skipping in from school, looking as bright 
and unworn as if she had been to a picnic, than he forgot his worri- 
ment, and believed her when she told him it rested her to go every day 
and tussle with those youngsters after tussling with such a big baby at 
home. 

When he was able to leave his bed and move about a little, he 
spent most of the time in the kitchen, where T. C. generously gave up 
the lounge to him. George and T. C. talked endlessly, while Ann 
pottered over her work and listened. Nothing so delighted her as to 
behold her husband worsted in an argument, and worsted he was sure 
to be by his educated son-in-law. It is true that Mrs. McGathern 
knew no more of logic than a cat, nor was she able to appreciate the 
merits of most of the matters discussed ; but whichever side George 
was on, she was on. When he fired a fact straight between his oppo- 
nent’s eyes, causing him meekly to ask, “ Is that so, sure?” Ann would 
rush forth from her pantry like a gleeful Fury, wave her dish-cloth, 
and exclaim, “ There! T. C. There! See that? What d’ I tell ye? 
Listen to that, now, will ye?” Learning as well as physical infirmity 
seemed to be growing less obnoxious to her. She had tried hard to 
cover up her pride when Janey was made principal, but she now took 
no pains to conceal what she thought of “ Jarge’s informaytion.” 

The burly Florence, with his pretty girl-face, once the delight of 
her eyes, was visibly losing ground in her estimation. 

a He jist sits round like a great lump,” she complained, “an’ has 
nothin’ a-tall to say when T. C. an’ Jarge is discoorsin’ their sinti- 
mints.” 

But George could do more than discourse. He won the remotest 
stronghold of his mother-in-law’s affections by the interest he showed 
in her household labors, and the help he insisted upon rendering 
therein. 

Vol. LVI1.— 53 


834 


A FELLOW-FEELING. 


“ Convalescing is a hard business, mother,” said he : “ do humor a 
poor nervous man by letting him make play of work. Here, give me 
that towel : I'll show you how to dry dishes.” Or, “ Please let me 
peel the potatoes; my fingers are fairly jerking for something to do.” 

No, she could not trust him with that delicate task ; men were too 
“ heavy-handed with the knife ; T. C. always cut all the insides away 
and left nothing but the skins to boil.” 

“ Try me, mother,” pleaded George. 

“ An’ sure,” Ann told Janey, “ he wasted no more o' the peelin's 
than if they'd been new pitaties.” 

He would help with the cooking, too. Ann stood by in admiring 
wonder watching him dexterously concoct strange and delicious dishes 
out of the commonest ingredients, — “ all be the head-learnin', too, an' 
him havin' no 'xper’nce.” 

On Ann's birthday, which came on a Sunday, he put everybody 
out of the kitchen and prepared the dinner entirely by himself. Father 
Claretie, Dr. Boyle, and Florence were invited guests, and all agreed 
that George had found his vocation in the noble art of cookery. 

“ You shall set up a caterer's shop,” said Janey, “ and I’ll keep on 
with the school till you make your fortune.” 

Next morning Janey was roused by her father, who crept down to 
say that her mother could not stir out of her bed. 

“ What's the matter with her?” 

“ I don't know ; she'll not tell me.” 

“ Perhaps it's the birthday dinner I cooked for her,” suggested 
George. 

“ No, I reckon it's not that,” T. C. hesitated : “ I'm afeard your 
mother's been ailin' some time unbeknownst. I seen it was hard for 
her to git about, but I said nothin' to any o' yees, — mostwise not to 
her, for I knowed it'd break her heart if I persayved it, seein' she 
was doin' her best to hide her trouble, whativer it was, an' step around 
same as she'd always. But now there's no savin' her feel in's any 
longer, 'cause she's struck down helpless.” 

“ We must send for the doctor.” 

“ She won't have him.” 

“ But she must.” 

“ Must ain't a word your mother's very partial to, you know, 
Janey.” 

“ Well, I'll go up and see her myself.” 

“She says she'll not have you lookin' at her in bed. She's in a 
kind o' shtate o' humility about it just now, though I reckon she’ll 
git over that by and by.” 

“ What shall we do ?” exclaimed Janey, desperately. 

“She says she wants no one but Georgy,” T. C. went on. “She 
thinks Georgy knows more'n the doctor, or anybody in the world.” 

“ She shall have me,” said Georgy, hopping out of bed like the 
well man he was fast getting to be. 

Mrs. Ann McGathern lay stricken with the rheumatism in her 
back and legs,— so sorely stricken that she was unable so much as to 
turn herself. 


A FELLOW-FEELING. 


835 

“ The divil’s got hold o’ me at last,” she said to George, “ an 7 he’s 
gripin’ me for all he’s worth.” 

It was three days before she could be persuaded to let Janey come 
up. Janey urged upon her the necessity of having the doctor. 

“ I’ll not have him,” she screamed ; “ he’ll be for givin’ me pison 
things which I niver took a drop of in me life nor I niver will.” 

“ He shan’t give you anything, mother, if you’ll only let him come 
and see you.” 

“ I’ll not be seen by him ; it’s bad enough to be seen by all o’ 
yees,” persisted the old woman, with a tone and look which plainly 
showed where her keenest sufferings lay. 

“ Well, I’ll be your doctor,” said George. He had studied a little 
medicine, and held very advanced views. Diet and massage alone 
were to cure Mrs. McGathern. Dr. Boyle instructed him in the 
principles of massage treatment, but George meant to follow his own 
theories as to diet. 

“ Don’t begin with corned beef and cabbage, Freeman,” said the 
physician, roguishly. 

“ Do you ever take your own medicines, doctor?” asked George. 
And they laughed at each other good-naturedly. Dr. Boyle under- 
stood Mrs. McGathern too well to be jealous of his “ lay brother.” 

“ When you’ve cured your patient,” said he, “ I’ll come up and 
call on her.’* 

It was late springtime before Dr. Boyle came to call. All the 
winter Ann lay in her bed, tended chiefly by her faithful son-in-law, 
who, moreover, took care of the house. He enjoyed his labors hugely, 
for his physical strength had returned, though the doctor warned him 
against taking up the strain of mental work for a year at least. Next 
autumn, if all went well, Janey would relinquish the principalship to 
him, but meanwhile he was grateful for the constant occupation of his 
hands. Ann, though delighted to have him for an attendant, did not 
altogether approve of his “demayning himself” by dish-washing and 
the daily round of cleaning and cooking. 

“ It was well enough,” she said, “ when ye played at it ; but ye’re 
too clever-headed a man for to be given up to sich maynial occupay- 
tions.” 

“ Oh, it’s good for a fellow to have plenty of trades,” George re- 
plied. “ Maybe Janey will want to hold on to the school when the 
time comes for me to go back ; in which case I can hire out to do 
general housework.” 

H is cheerfulness was Ann’s true medicine. She, poor soul, devel- 
oped an astonishing resignation. In the beginning her rebelliousness 
was so ludicrous that George often recalled T. C.’s image of “ a hen 
with the mumps but after she had outlived the first overwhelming 
mortification at finding herself actually in the clutches of “disayse,” 
she showed a determination to follow her own oft-enunciated saying, 
that “ sick folks haven’t no right to complain ; it’s a bad enough dis- 
grace to be helpless.” 

She would not obey any one except George : with him she was 
submissive as a little child. 


836 


A FELLOW-FEELING. 


Thanks to his intelligent care and to her own patience, the mild 
spring weather found her able to go about the house again. 

George cooked a fine dinner to celebrate her coming down-stairs, 
and the doctor, the priest, and Florence, who had been present when 
she last appeared at the family table, were bidden to welcome her 
return. Ann was in gay spirits, though withal something softened 
from her former brusque self. She was pleased to be gay at her own 
expense, too, and invited rather than evaded allusions to her late illness. 

“ Confess, now, Mrs. McGathern,” said Dr. Boyle, “ don’t you 
think you ran an awful risk in trusting yourself to an inexperienced 
practitioner like Freeman? For my part, I believe you got well in 
spite of his treatment. Do you really think him a better physician 
than I am ? Tell the truth, now.” 

Ann shot a shrewd glance around her cap-frills at George, who sat 
next her, and delayed the disburden ment of her well-laden knife as 
she replied, — 

“ I’ll deliver me final opinion after he’s sent in his bill.” 

u Mother,” said George, quickly, leaning forward upon the table 
and looking her squarely in the face, “ my charges are very slight ; I 
ask one thing only : that you answer a question — here, before us all. 
What made you send for Janey and me to come home?” 

She laid down her knife, and her face changed. T. C. and Janey 
looked anxiously at George, as if to say, “ How dared you ?” The doctor 
and Florence were alert, while Father Claretie, though he caught Ann’s 
eye for an instant, preserved a proper know-nothing demeanor. 

“ I’ll tell ye,” she said presently, in a grave manner ; “ I’ll tell ye 
all about it. It was this way. Ye know I was always that set ag’in’ 
disayse an’ ivery kind o’ ailment that I couldn’t abide it nohow. I 
could ’a’ put up with the divil an’ his angels, — savin’ your riverence, 
Father Claretie, — so long as they was hearty an’ strong on their legs ; 
but a sickly an’ ailin’ saint, I’d no use for him a-tall, not if he was 
the biggest o’ the lot. 

“ When I was a tiny wee little gyurl, we’d a picture o’ Saint Jarge, 
a pretty young man, as strong as a bull, an’ him a-straddlin’ the dragon, 
an’ another picture of a saint what’d laid out nights till he’d got him- 
self in a bad way. Well, me mother she wanted me to pray to ’em 
both, but I’d not do it. I’d pray to Saint Jarge, but I used to tell 
her the other had all he could do to look after himself, an’, besides, 
I hated the sight of him, so woe-begone. Nor she couldn’t talk me 
out of it. 

“ When I growed up it was the same ; an’ what encouraged me in 
this way o’ feelin’ was that I niver got sick meself, do what I would. 
I was always as sound as a roach. 

“ Ye can guess I was quite dissatisfied to have T. C. go be the 
boord ; I felt he’d married me on false pretinces, for a healthy husbind 
was the thing above all others I’d looked out for; but when Jarge 
come along so kind o’ lackadaisical, an’ him an’ Janey begun makin’ 
eyes at one another, I jist thought for sure the good Lord had some- 
thin’ ag’in’ me. 

“ Well, there’s no denyin’ I got mad at Janey for runnin’ off to be 


SHADINGS. 


837 


married, an* I was that wicked I got mad at Father Claretie.” The 
priest smiled a bland, forgiving smile. “ Oh, ye were right enough, 
father,” she went on ; “ Janey was of age ; she might do as she liked ; 
only I could ’a’ spanked her for bein’ so silly. T. C. he was for par- 
donin’ ’em both at once, but I says to him, ‘ T. C., I’d ’a’ given Janey 
a fine weddin’-party if she’d married to suit me, but I ain’t a-goin’ to 
furnish her a weddin’-funeral jist ’cause she’s gone an’ taken a man 
with his very grave-clothes on him.’ 

“ Well, one night I was layin’ awake, thinkin’ o’ Janey’s silliness, 
an’ cherishin’ ill-feelin’s toords Jarge for gittin’ himself into a dyin’ 
shtate, when somethin’ went shootin’ through me like a knife or a 
double-p’inted darnin’-naydle. I’d niver felt sich a thing before. It 
sthruck me here an’ there an’ all over, an’ made me that wake that 
the sweat poured off me like water. I had all I could do to kape 
quiet, so that T. C. shouldn’t know. I laid there all night a-sufferin’ 
from head to foot, an’ them darnin’-naydles an’ carvin’-knives jabbin’ 
into me like that many voices sayin’, ‘ Now we’re a-showin’ ye what it’s 
like to be sick.’ Then I thought kind o’ tenderly o’ T. C. an’ Jarge, 
for I seen how it was ye couldn’t help yourself when it was the Lord’s 
will that sickness should take ye. But for all that I hated meself ; 
oh, I jist hated meself, as if ’twas the divil that had hold o’ me. 

“ An’ next mornin’ I could hardly crawl about, but I’d settled me 
mind regardin’ Janey ; I sort o’ ’xcused her for wantin’ to be tendin’ 
on Jarge : so I says to T. C., ‘ We’ll have Jarge an’ Janey home,’ — 
sayin’ no more’n that to him, thinkin’ it was none o’ his business what 
rason I had. 

“ So that’s how I come to do it.” 

“ I knowed your rason all along,” said T. C. He had left the 
table during Ann’s recital, and lay on the lounge with his dudeen. 

“ And so did I, mother,” said George ; “ or I guessed it as soon as 
your message came.” 

“ Then why’d ye make me tell all this out now ?” 

“ Oh, just for a little penance, to atone for all the bad things you 
once said about me. I filled Dr. Boyle’s place so well — though he 
won’t acknowledge it — that I thought I’d try my hand at Father 
Claretie’s trade and bring you to confession.” 

“ I’m not sure that I should have ventured to prescribe public con- 
fession as a penance,” said Father Claret ie. 

Ann looked lovingly at George, and a bit of her old daring came 
into her voice as she said, “ Ye’ve done me more good than the doctor 
and the priest together.” 

Edith Brower. 


SHADINGS . 

W RONG casts a halo o’er the brow of Right, 

And shadow is the emphasis of light. 

Grace F. Pennypacker. 


838 


THE FEIGNING OF DEATH BY ANIMALS. 


THE FEIGNING OF DEATH BY ANIMALS. 

1 1HE habit of feigning death for the sake of protection can be ob- 
served among many of the lower animals, — animals which differ 
widely in family, genus, and species. Indeed, this habit is to be ob- 
served in creatures microscopic in size and of exceedingly low organi- 
zation, as well as in those as high in the scale of animal life as man 
himself ; for even man does not hesitate, on occasions, to avail himself 
of this natural subterfuge when he thinks it will aid in the preservation 
of his life. 

With the aid of the microscope one can observe and study the 
natural history of the minute animal world which otherwise would 
remain a closed and unread volume. This instrument has shown me, 
beyond cavil, that creatures as low in the scale as actinophryans, very 
minute, microscopic animalcules, practise death-feigning when sur- 
prised by an enemy from which they cannot otherwise escape. Thus, 
I have repeatedly seen actinophryans fold their delicate, hair-like legs 
or cilia and sink to the bottom of their miniature lake (a drop of 
water) when approached by a water-louse, which preys upon them. 
They remain to all appearances absolutely without life until the water- 
louse swims away, when they unfold their cilia and go back to their 
feeding-grounds, — a bit of water-weed, or moss, or decayed wood. 

A fresh-water worm is in the habit of making use of this stratagem 
when approached by the giant water-beetle. This little thread-like 
worm can be found in almost every pond, as can also its natural enemy 
the giant water-beetle: so this interesting bit of natural histrionics 
may be witnessed by any one who will take the trouble to secure these 
creatures and place them in a jar of clear water. They are large 
enough to be seen with the naked eye : a lens, therefore, will not be 
necessary. The worm will be seen swimming with gentle undulations, 
when suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, it will appear bereft of all 
motion, and, hanging in the water like a bit of thread, the sport and 
plaything of every current, will seem utterly lifeless. The cause of 
this sudden change is not far away, for, cleaving the water with 
arrowy swiftness, its broad oar-like legs working with all the regularity 
of the oars in the well-manned cutter of a man-o’-war, a giant water- 
beetle will make its appearance. As soon as it has disappeared from 
the immediate neighborhood, however, the worm will “ come to life” 
and resume its swimming. 

Even an anemone, a creature of very low organization indeed, has 
acquired this habit. On one occasion, near St. Johns, Newfoundland, 
I noticed a beautiful anemone in a pool of sea-water. I reached down 
my hand for it, when, presto ! it shrivelled and shrunk like a flash 
into an unsightly green lump and appeared nothing more than a moss- 
covered nodule of rock. 

Very many grubs make use of this habit when they imagine them- 
selves in danger. For instance, the " fever worm,” the larva of one 


THE FEIGNING OF DEATH BY ANIMALS. 


839 


of our common butterflies, is a noted death-feigner, and will “ pretend 
dead” on the slightest provocation. Touch this grub with the toe of 
your boot, or with the tip of your finger, or with a stick, and it will 
at once curl up, to all appearances absolutely without life. A gentle- 
man recently told me that he saw the following example of letisimula- 
tion ( letum , death, and simulare , to feign). One day, while sitting in 
his front yard, he saw a caterpillar crawling on the ground at his feet. 
The grub crawled too near the edge of a little pit in the sandy loam, 
and fell over, dragging with it a miniature avalanche of sand. It 
immediately essayed to climb up the north side of the pit, and had 
almost reached the top, when the treacherous soil gave way beneath its 
feet, and back it rolled to the bottom. It then tried the west side, and 
met with a like mishap. Not discouraged in the least by its failure, 
it then tried the east side, and reached the very edge, where it acci- 
dentally disturbed the equilibrium of a corncob poised upon the mar- 
gin of the pit, dislodged it, and fell with it to the bottom. The cater- 
pillar evidently thought that the cob was an enemy, for it at once 
rolled itself into a ball and feigned death. It remained quiescent for 
some time, but finally “came to life,” tried the south side with 
triumphant success, and went on its way rejoicing. This little creature 
evinced conscious determination and a certain amount of reason ; for 
it never tried the same side of the pit in its struggles to escape, but 
always essayed a different side from that where it had encountered 
failure. 

The scarabseus, or “tumble-bug,” is a gifted letisimulant, and one 
with which experimentation can easily be carried on. It can be seen 
any bright day in the latter part of July or in early August busily 
engaged in rolling its precious balls of manure, seemingly, here and 
there and everywhere along the roads and paths. This is not a pur- 
poseless pastime, however, on the part of this industrious little worker. 
There is a method in her seeming vacillation : she is looking for a 
proper place in which to bury her treasure. The future welfare, nay, 
even the very existence, of her offspring depends on the judicious 
selection of a proper soil in which their cradle and their food (the ball 
of manure) is to be deposited until they emerge, young and vigorous 
“ tumble-bugs.” 

Touch this little mother with your foot, and at once her busy legs 
are drawn close to the sides of her body, her vibrating antennae or 
“feelers” are drawn beneath her head, and she sinks to the ground, 
seemingly “ as dead as a door-nail.” Step aside and wait a moment. 
Soon one of her antennae makes its appearance from beneath her head, 
followed in a second by the other; her ears are in these “feelers,” and 
she is listening for dangerous sounds. Stamp your foot, and, presto ! 
the antennae disappear and she is again in the land of departed tumble- 
bugs. You may cause her to do this once or twice, but she soon 
discovers that the noise you make does not presage danger, and, her 
maternal instinct getting the better of her caution, she will busily re- 
sume the rolling of her ball. From some experiments, I am confident 
that these beetles know their individual balls ; that is, they are able to 
select their own property when placed among a number of balls. If, 


840 


THE FEIGNING OF DEATH BY ANIMALS. 


however, ouly one ball is given them, they will accept it, whether it 
be their own or not. 

The “ stink-bug, ” or bombardier beetle, is another gifted death- 
feigner. This creature feigns death, however, only when it has ex- 
hausted its other means of defence. Along the margins of its body 
are small orifices leading to bags or sacks containing an exceedingly 
offensive and acrid secretion. Whenever the stink-bug is approached 
by an enemy, it sinks down on one side, thus elevating the other ; 
from the elevated side it discharges a broadside of foul-smelling, acrid 
abomination at the enemy. If its opponent is not put to flight by this 
fire, it quickly tacks about, like a ship in a battle, and lets go the other 
broadside. If the enemy still perseveres, it drops upon the ground, 
slightly opens its wing-cases, and feigns death. Very few of its 
enemies are able to withstand both broadsides; consequently it is 
rarely forced to have recourse to its last weapon of defence, letisimu- 
lation. 

Some snakes have acquired the habit of feigning death, notably the 
black viper and the tree-moccasin. Last summer I had the pleasure 
of witnessing a realistic bit of acting in which a black viper enacted a 
death-scene. I found this snake in a meadow in which there were no 
bushes or rocks among or beneath which it could hide. I teased it for 
a while with my stick, when it suddenly bent backward and seemingly 
bit itself in the back. Immediately it shuddered throughout its entire 
length, turned over upon its back, and feigned death. It was a 
wonderful bit of acting, which I have never seen surpassed, or even 
equalled, on the stage. I retired several yards, and, seating myself 
upon the ground, remained perfectly quiet. In a few moments the 
snake turned upon its belly and rapidly made off towards the wood on 
the outskirts of the meadow. Farmers and country-people call this 
viper the “ suicide-snake, ” and insist that it actually poisons itself. 
As they generally pound it to mince-meat in order to make sure of its 
death, and never wait about to see whether it comes to life again if left 
intact, they have some warrant for their belief, especially when the 
extraordinary talent of the actor is taken into consideration. This 
snake, however, has no fangs, no poison-glands whatever, and is 
entirely harmless. 

Ants very often make use of this subterfuge when attacked by 
creatures more powerful than themselves or when they have been 
wounded in battle. I have frequently seen these insects, when over- 
powered by larger and stronger ants of a different species, submit 
themselves to be pulled about and maltreated without giviug the 
slightest sign of life. At length, when abandoned by their enemies, 
I have seen them jump up and run away, no doubt heartily congratu- 
lating themselves on the success of their ruse. 

Some of the higher animals, such as the hare, the opossum, the 
ground-hog, and the wombat, also make use of death-feigning on oc- 
casions. The opossum is an especially talented actor in this line, and 
has given his name to an expressive word, “ possuming,” which had 
for its origin his habit of feigning death when captured. Man him- 
self makes use of it when he thinks that his safety depends upon a 


YOUTHFUL READING OF LITERARY MEN. 


841 


successful imitation of death : witness the many tales of hunters, 
soldiers, et al. The origin of this habit seems to me to be as follows. 
Most animals are slain for food by other animals, and there is therefore 
a continuous struggle for existence. In a state of nature, carnivorous 
and insectivorous animals, with the exception of a very few, prefer 
freshly killed food to carrion, and will not touch tainted meat when 
they can procure fresh. 

It is a mistake to suppose that carnivora prefer putrid or tainted 
food ; the exigencies of their lives and their struggle for existence are 
the factors which often compel them to eat it, and not any innate 
desire for it. Domesticated, well-fed dogs will occasionally take it, 
but sparingly, and apparently as a relish, just as we eat certain odor- 
iferous and ill-smelling cheeses, such as Limburger, for instance. 
Carnivora and insectivora would rather do their own butchering: 
hence, when they find their prey apparently dead, they will leave it 
alone and go in search of other quarry, unless they are very hungry. 
Putrid or even tainted flesh is a dangerous substance to go into most 
stomachs, certain ptomaines rendering it, at times, exceedingly poison- 
ous. Long years of experience and inherited impressions have taught 
this fact to animals, and therefore most of them let dead or seemingly 
dead creatures severely alone. Besides, they think that there is no use 
in attacking and destroying a thing that is already dead ; it cannot get 
away ; therefore, if a living victim cannot be found, a return can be 
made at any time to the dead. 

James Weir. 


YOUTHFUL READING OF LITERARY MEN. 

T HE literary taste usually manifests itself at an early age in a pas- 
sion for books. Many men of letters have begun to read almost 
as soon as they began to talk. To the youthful enthusiast in litera- 
ture his adoration for favorite works and authors is an emotion as pro- 
found and sacred as that of a religious experience or a first love-affair. 
No friendships are so delightful as those founded on a basis of similar 
tastes in books, and the most fascinating stage of an acquaintance is 
that in which we learn each other’s literary preferences. We are at- 
tracted at once to any one who appreciates our favorite authors, and 
find ourselves separated by an impassable gulf from those who fail to 
perceive their merits. 

Andrew Lang says, “ A difference in taste in books, when it is de- 
cided and vigorous, breaks many a possible friendship.” He indicates 
the passport to his favor by telling us that “ he or she who contemns 
Scott and cannot read Dickens is a person with whom I would fain have 
no further converse.” 

Hamerton also recognizes the necessity of intellectual companion- 
ship in friendship, saying that he has never had “any natural or easy 
conversational intercourse with those who have not been readers at some 


842 


YOUTHFUL READING OF LITERARY MEN. 


time of their lives/’ and that he has never found himself “ in anything 
like intellectual intimacy with men who had not been classically edu- 
cated.” There may seem a narrowness about such a requirement for 
fellowship ; but it illustrates the inherent desire to find in our friends 
tastes similar to our own. 

As lovers of books never come to anything more than a superficial 
acquaintance until they have learned each other’s likes and dislikes, so 
we feel our comprehension of the character of an author greatly assisted 
by knowing the books of which he was fond. It is strange that many 
biographers either ignore or pass lightly over a matter of so much con- 
sequence. Autobiographies are generally more satisfactory. When a 
man’s books have been one of the chief pleasures of his life, he is not 
likely to fail to mention them in giving an account of himself. 

The important place which books filled in Mr. Hamerton’s life, and 
the direction of his tastes, can be inferred from the remarks quoted 
from him. He lacked one of the essentials to Andrew Lang’s favor, 
since he admits that he “ finds it hard work to read Dickens.” He 
also confesses to having read Balzac and George Eliot only as a study. 
Scott and Thackeray are the two novelists he most enjoyed. In his 
youth he says that Scott’s poetry was his delight. Later he was cap- 
tivated by Byron, Shelley, Keats, and Tennyson, while Montaigne, 
Emerson, and Buskin were among his favorite prose writers. 

Mr. Stevenson also mentions Montaigne as an author whose ac- 
quaintance he made early and who was very influential with him. 
Shakespeare, he says, served him best of all, and outside of Shake- 
speare his dearest friend was D’Artagnan. Besides these, “ The Pil- 
grim’s Progress,” Whitman’s “ Leaves of Grass,” the Gospel according 
to St. Matthew, the “ Meditations of Marcus Aurelius,” and “ The 
Egoist” form part of an enumeration which indicates that Mr. Steven- 
son was versatile in taste as well as in style. 

It is seldom that so marked a connection exists between the reading 
of the child and the pursuits of the man as in the case of Buskin. 
When quite a child a friend gave him a copy of Bogers’s “ Italy,” 
illustrated by Turner, and this early familiarity with Turner’s art is 
claimed with much show of reason by one of Buskin’s biographers to 
have been the “ chief formative factor in his after-life.” Buskin him- 
self tells us that from his early childhood he regularly read aloud to 
his mother Pope’s Homer and the novels of Walter Scott. On Sunday 
“ Bobinson Crusoe” and “ The Pilgrim’s Progress” were substituted. 
“ My mother,” he says, “ forced me to learn long chapters of the Bible 
by heart, and to that discipline I owe the best part of my taste in 
literature.” 

Bider Haggard is among the many who have named “ Bobinson 
Crusoe” as a childish idol. One Sunday morning, when he was ex- 
pected to go to church, he relates that he hid himself under a bed with 
the treasured volume. His sisters discovered him and attempted to 
drag him from his retreat; but the boy clung to the legs of the bed 
and kicked so desperately that they were obliged to give up the struggle 
and leave him to the enjoyment of Crusoe. Next to this book he liked 
the “ Arabian Nights,” “ The Three Musketeers,” and the poems of 


YOUTHFUL READING OF LITERARY MEN. 843 

Poe and Macaulay. At present the two novels he likes best, he says, 
are “ A Tale of Two Cities” and Lytton’s “ Coming Race.” 

Walter Besant says, “ The book which most seized my imagination 
was the immortal Pilgrim’s Progress.” Among other youthful prefer- 
ences he names “ Nicholas Nickleby,” Shakespeare’s “ Tempest,” and 
Pope’s Homer. 

The early literary taste of Walter Scott furnishes another instance 
in which the child was indeed the father of the man. Before he 
learned to read he knew by heart ballads of Hardyknute and bits of 
Josephus which an aunt read to him. Before he was eight years old he 
had read extensively Bunyan, Milton, Pope’s Homer, and border bal- 
lads. While never much of a classical scholar, he yet had read Caesar, 
Livy, Horace, Sallust, Virgil, and Terence before the age of twelve. 
Among his other reading at the same period are mentioned Percy’s 
Reliques, the songs of Ossian, Spenser’s “ Faerie Queene,” Tasso’s 
“ Jerusalem Delivered,” and Ariosto’s “ Orlando Furioso,” with the 
works of Mackenzie, Fielding, Smollett, and others of the best Eng- 
lish novelists. He is said to have neglected his Greek, but he read 
with facility French, Spanish, Italian, and German. When he was 
eighteen years old we are told that “ he had already studied the Anglo- 
Saxon and the Norse sagas, and was especially profound in Fordun, 
Wyntoun, and all the Scottish Chronicles, so that his friends called 
him Duns Scotus.” 

In these days, when Scott has fallen temporarily out of fashion, it 
is refreshing to notice how many of the foremost men of letters of our 
time profess a fondness for him. Hamerton, whose liking for him has 
already been mentioned, says, “Of all authors it is Scott who has 
given me the greatest sum of pleasure, and of a very healthy kind.” 
To this healthiness of tone, joined to his literary gifts, is due the per- 
manent attraction which Scott exercises for readers of fine taste and 
sound nature. 

Mr. Mabie says of Macaulay that “ the man who knew his Popes so 
well that he could repeat them backward stood in sore need of the 
grace of forgetfulness to save him from becoming a scourge to his 
kind.” This omnivorous reader, who never forgot, began to imbibe 
literature in copious draughts at the age of three. Some conception 
of the scope of his reading can be gained from his own compositions 
before he was eight years old. Among them are mentioned a com- 
pendium of universal history, a long poem inspired by Scott’s “ Lay 
of the Last Minstrel” and “ Marmion,” and another in imitation of 
Virgil. To Mrs. More he is said to have “ read prose by the ell and 
declaimed poetry by the hour.” 

John Stuart Mill’s mind was formed by a method suggestive of 
the process by which unfortunate geese are treated for the sake of 
furnishing the delicacy of pate de foie gras to epicures. He was from 
his babyhood so systematically crammed with knowledge of all kinds 
that there was little opportunity for his childish taste to assert itself. 
One sighs regretfully over the evidence of a ruined childhood when one 
reads that he was studying Greek at three. His reading before the 
age of eight is said to have included the “ Anabasis,” Herodotus, the 


844 


YOUTHFUL READING OF LITERARY MEN. 


“ Memorabilia,” the Dialogues of Plato, and the historical writings 
of Robertson, Hume, Gibbon, Watson, Rollin, Mosheim, and others. 
It is a relief to learn that “ Robinson Crusoe” delighted him through 
his boyhood, and that he also had the “ Arabian Nights,” “ Don Quix- 
ote,” and Miss Edgeworth’s “ Popular Tales.” 

Quite different was the development of that cyclopaedia of learning, 
the historian Buckle. He hardly knew his letters before he was eight 
years old. Then he began to read the “ Arabian Nights.” Until he 
was eighteen he read nothing else but Bunyan, “ Don Quixote,” and 
Shakespeare. It is related that “ his mother bought him books without 
number,” but he cared for none of them. His late start was com- 
pensated by a prodigiously rapid progress in literary knowledge later. 
By the time he was thirty he had acquired nineteen languages, and his 
biographer says, “ He was an omnivorous reader, no book of any kind 
coming amiss to him; and he had the power, accorded to few, of 
plucking out, as it were, the heart of a book by doing little more than 
turning over the pages, with here and there an occasional halt.” 

The boyish reading of that eccentric genius Charles Godfrey Le- 
land, as related in his memoirs, surpasses everything on record in re- 
spect to both quantity and oddity. He seems to have been born with 
the fully developed taste and instinct of the collector for black-letter 
volumes. He tells us that “ he never read of a boy who knew so many 
ballads and minor poems” as he. As a child he “ not only read, but 
collected and preserved, every comic almanac” he could get. He was 
a great reader of Scripture. “ The Apocrypha was a favorite work,” 
he says, “ but above all I loved the Revelation.” The application 
which he made of his biblical knowledge, drawing from it objectionable 
epithets to apply to the servants, rather spoils this statement for use in 
a Sunday-school book. His chief relish was for books of “ curiosities 
and oddities,” and all such works seemed to gravitate towards him. 
“ The Devil on Two Sticks,” the “ Narrative of Captain Boyle,” 
and the “Marvellous Depository,” a remarkable collection of old 
legends, were among the works of thrilling interest to him. “All 
of this,” he says, “ was unconsciously educating my bewitched mind 
to a deep and very precocious passion for mediaeval and black-letter 
literature and occult philosophy.” Stumbling one day upon Rabelais, 
he declares that “ one-quarter of an hour’s reading of Rabelais was to 
me as the light which flashed upon Saul journeying to Damascus.” 
The amount and style of the material with which his mind was 
stocked at the age of fourteen may be gathered from the following 
passage from the memoirs. “ I discovered in the Loganian section 
of the library several hundred volumes of occult philosophy, a col- 
lection once formed by an artist named Cox, and I really read nearly 
every one. Cornelius Agrippa and Barrett’s Magus, Paracelsus, the 
black-letter edition of Reginald Scott, Glanville, Gaffarel, Trithemius, 
Baptista Porta, and God knows how many Rosicrucian writers, became 
familiar to me.” The boy must indeed have been an enigma to his far 
from bookish companions : he implored his father to buy for him 
the “ Reductorium or moralization of the whole Bible by Petrus Bu- 
chorius” of the date of 1511, with MS. notes on the margin by Me- 


YOUTHFUL READING OF LITERARY MEN. 


845 


lanchthon. His explorations in French literature were of such a char- 
acter that the French professor to whom he was sent for preparation 
for college threw up his hands in horror when his precocious pupil told 
what he had read, exclaiming, “ Unhappy boy, you have raked through 
the library of the devil down to the dregs.” One must search far and 
long to find a parallel to the youthful literary diet of Leland. 

Bryant, like many children of his day, was sent to school before 
he was four years old. At the age of ten he was already writing 
poetry and devouring “ whatever poetry fell in his way.” In those 
days he and his brothers read Pope’s Iliad with great delight. He 
was fond of Burns, Cowper, Thomson, Southey, Wordsworth, and later 
of Henry Kirke White, “ whose poetry had for him at that time a 
peculiar fascination.” 

It is said of Bayard Taylor that “ reading had charms for him 
from his earliest years.” He delighted in poetry and history, and says 
of himself, “ An enthusiastic desire of visiting the Old World haunted 
me from early childhood.” 

The biographer of J. G. Holland says that books were a rarity 
in his father’s house. The literary taste was nevertheless so strong in 
the boy that, lacking other means of gratifying it, he borrowed from 
the minister his works in divinity by Emmons, Griffin, Hopkins, and 
Edwards, all of which were read through. 

James Freeman Clarke had access in his boyhood to a good col- 
lection of standard authors, from which he became familiar with the 
histories of Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon, Miss Edgeworth’s Tales, 
Scott’s novels and poems, the Spectator, and the Guardian. He says, 
“ It did us no harm to read over again and again Paradise Lost, Pope’s 
Essay on Man, the Vicar of Wakefield, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver’s 
Travels, the poems of Prior, Gay, and Peter Pindar, Miss Burney’s 
Cecilia and Evelina, the Scottish Chiefs, Thaddeus of Warsaw, Thom- 
son’s Seasons, and Shenstone’s poems.” 

The completest and most fascinating literary autobiography yet in 
print is contained in Mr. Howells’s “ My Literary Passions.” No one 
who possesses in any degree the true passion for books can read this 
without feeling a debt of gratitude to the author. To be given the 
opportunity of a familiar acquaintance with the enthusiasms and the 
development of taste of one of the most interesting men of letters of 
the day is a rare privilege. Mr. Higginson has deplored the absence 
of literary background in the writings of Mr. Howells and Mr. James, 
and has ascribed it to the lack of an academic training. Mr. Howells’s 
reminiscences reveal an early familiarity with classic literature far 
superior to that of the majority of college students, and Mr. James in 
his charming critical papers shows a broad literary culture which amply 
refutes Mr. Higginson’s theory. Both of these men belong to the class 
of modern writers who prefer that the richness of their culture should 
be judged by the perfection of their style rather than by their wealth 
of literary allusions. In this they are like the modern society women 
of literary tastes whose boast it is that a stranger might talk with them 
for an entire evening without ever imagining that they had read a book. 

Edith Dickson. 


846 


THE CHANGEFUL SKIES. 


THE CHANGEFUL SKIES. 

I cannot read ; 

’Twixt every page my thoughts go stray at large, 

Down in the meadow. 

Thoreau. 

D OWN in the meadow ! — a poem of four words that will never 
need explanatory notes. I am “ down” in the sense of being 
nearer the level of the sea, when there, but up, high up, in exhilara- 
tion. Lord Bacon says that this emotion is not as profound as joy; but 
what use in such fine distinctions ? I joy in the exhilaration that comes 
from breathing the meadow air, and let us attend to it, rather than to 
the meanings of words, that keep our cheap champions of erudition so 
busy. I went down to the meadows to-day, that 1 might more readily 
look upward, having thought before starting how little apt are we to 
consider the sky when taking an outing, and yet Shakespeare’s “ skyey 
influences” are more potent than we think. I do not mean such in- 
fluence as that which leads to glancing upward in the morning, and, 
in the fulness of our conceit, contradicting the barometer. There are 
men who do this, get caught in the rain, and, denying it the next 
day, prove themselves not only fools, but worse. Thoreau encountered 
such folk even in Concord, and thought they poisoned their immediate 
atmosphere. 

In going out of doors, it is a little strange that that which is most 
prominent is likely to be least noticed. The truth is, the sky, which 
is but a name for an appearance, is nevertheless the most obvious of 
facts. If not palpable as the earth beneath, it makes itself felt, which 
is much the same thing so far as the rambler is concerned ; and certainly 
much is lost if we fail to respond to skyey influences. 

We think little about the sky, can roam for hours beneath it with- 
out looking up ; and yet it is the most assertive object in the outlook : 
poets have applied to it more adjectives than to any object beneath. 
They descant on “ the witchery of the soft blue sky,” but what of the 
heartlessness of the steel-blue canopy, when there is not a trace of life 
within sight or hearing? The cloudless sky of June is not that of 
January. 

Because there were few birds, fewer flowers, and but little green 
grass where I chanced to wander, I took the hint from Ovid : the 
skies are open — let us try the skies. So I looked long upon them as 
they overhung the old meadows, old as the glacial period, and yet how 
new as compared with the sky that now looked down upon them ! To- 
day the sky was blue, fading to violet, with one great white cloud that 
slowly marched to intercept the sun. It was with keen pleasure that 
I watched this rolled and rounded mass of drifted snow, for such it 
seemed, draw near. It did not dissolve nor hurry in torn fragments 
from the fray, but with bold front shut out the sunbeams. What a 
marvellous change takes place when the meadows are shifted from sun- 
shine to shade ! That short-lived shadow brought in its train a whis- 


THE CHANGEFUL SKIES. 847 

pering breeze, but so gently did it pass that I fancied it was the shadow 
itself that whispered. 

A word here as to the imagination. If it is kept within too close 
bounds, your outing is likely to prove so many miles of walking to no 
purpose. It is not fair to say that inaccuracy is sure to follow the free 
play of the imagination. Our fancy need not act as a distorting glass, 
and does not, except with the author’s connivance. The greatest blun- 
derers about Nature have been the precise students who occasionally find 
themselves outside their closets. It is one thing, as Bryant puts it, to 

Go forth under the open sky and list 

To Nature’s teachings, 

but another to know what to do when you get there. My suggestion 
is to let your imagination have scope as well as your appreciation of 
the actual facts you meet with. There need be no conflict in your 
mind, nor any misleading statement, if you are moved to speak. 

To return : quickly again the sky was bright and blue, and the 
meadows were filled with light, — a clear, warm, penetrating light, that 
was reaching the rootlets and bulbs in the damp soil, quickening them. 
The grape hyacinth had already responded, and reflected the deepest 
color the April skies had offered ; and the earliest of our larger lilies 
was above the grass, with the yellow of the noonday glare in its blossoms. 
These flowers show well together, representing on earth the sun and 
sky ; but how seldom do we turn from them to the high heavens ! A 
few flowers will hold us while the firmament is marked by conditions 
which may, at least in our lifetime, never again occur. 

There hangs in the hall a barometer that has foretold for many 
years, without blundering, the kind of weather that we are to have, 
and it can be read with profit when interpreting the skies. For in- 
stance, it often happens that before the great masses of sullen clouds, 
bringing the summer shower or the day-long rain, appear above the 
horizon, we are informed by it, and so can anticipate their coming and 
watch their progress. This is akin, in the pleasure it affords, to finding 
a new flower or hearing the song of a rare bird. There is less same- 
ness in the cloud-flecked skies than upon the earth when light and 
shadow dash across the scene. I recall one long cloud that slowly rose 
from half the horizon at once and moved like a huge curtain overhead. 
The air was “ light” as that on mountain-tops, and so free from dust that 
the senses of sight and hearing were unusually acute. The sky seemed 
more distant than when free from clouds, or, as the phrase goes, was 
hollow. The nearer objects in the outlook were more removed than 
usual, as though we looked through the wrong end of a field-glass, and 
yet every outline was distinct. Sounds that we often hear without 
recognizing as other than part of the general hum of the day’s activity 
were now startling. There was not a crow in sight, yet the clamor of 
a hundred was plainly heard, and the whistle of a cardinal redbird and 
the clear call of a crested tit came from the hill-side half a mile away. 
Such sounds as these, coming from unseen creatures, added interest 
to these “ hollow” skies, and from them all revelations were expected. 
Much besides rain comes from above. From my comfortable resting- 


848 


THE CHANGEFUL SKIES. 


place against a sloping willow I saw the avant-coureurs , it might be, 
of the coming storm, a long line of small black dots that slowly altered 
shape and, while yet afar off, proved to be herons, — long-necked, long- 
legged, broad-winged herons, that give such a wildness to the remaining 
marshes hereabouts. With a background of blue sky they might have 
passed unseen, but now each was grandly pictured against the leaden 
cloud, and in the still air I fancied I could hear the rustling of their 
wing-beats. 

Slowly as they came they passed from sight. When they were lost 
to me, I turned hopefully to the point where they had appeared, and, 
to my surprise, saw others. These were not black specks, but white 
dots that lengthened into lines and grew to great white herons, following 
in the path of their blue brethren. The clear air and leaden back- 
ground brought out every outline. I could see them move their heads 
from side to side, as if to view the old haunts of their ancestors. How 
vividly they brought back the days of old delight, when I was young 
and the world newer than I find it now, — those over-full days that in 
many a way might have continued but for the ignorance of man and 
the vanity of woman. It is a red-letter day of late when we can see 
the white herons on the river shore ; yet I have seen them in great 
numbers, and it is on record, “ the white cranes did whiten the river 
bank like a great snow-drift.” Let heartless fashion demand a feather, 
and the death-warrant of thousands of birds is signed. Here and there 
a protesting voice may be raised, but only to be drowned in the sneers 
of an indifferent people. I once was foolish enough to speak of the 
rights of a rambler to the wild life left about us, and was met with 
ridicule. “ I’ve got to practise on swallows to learn to shoot quick,” 
was my interlocutor’s reply. My summer sky must be cleared of its 
swallows, it seems, to meet the useless skill of a brute neighbor. How 
I rejoiced when his gun burst ! 

There is a world of suggestiveness in the words just used, “ my 
summer skies.” Therein lies ownership of a wholly satisfactory kind. 
They are mine without cost, without even the asking, and, better still, 
without depriving others, — mine, yours, the common wealth of all ; and 
yet few, it appears, place any value upon them. To many they are of 
as little importance as the frame of a picture ; yet often they are the 
real picture and the earth is but the naked platform upon which we 
stand to view it. It is hard to find a fitting phrase for many a pano- 
ramic sky ; as the skies of early June, blue of incomparable shade, with 
white clouds, pink-edged and piled into fantastic shapes, — great castles 
that are unbuilt before you can people them with the merry elfs and fays 
of the month of roses. In June we have those bright skies that deepen 
when the day is done to blue-black, and, losing their flatness, are lifted 
to a hollow dome that, star-studded, shows you at last how very far 
away it really is. The skies that at noon rested on the tree-tops that 
hem in the little space about us grow immeasurably grand at midnight; 
and when from out these starlit skies we hear strange voices, they as- 
sume a new importance, and we begin to realize better their significance. 
The upper region, our sky, is seldom lacking in animal life. Probably 
hundreds of birds, in the course of a day, pass over us, just out of 


THE JAR. 


849 


sight ; and when in the silent watches of the night we plainly hear 
the voices of wanderers, a new chapter of ornithology is opened to us. 
The clear-toned call of a plover, the hoarse croak of a raven, the chirp- 
ing of many finches, the fretful scream of an eagle, have all been noted 
in a single night. We can only follow these birds in fancy, but the 
fancy will not lead us astray. The direction in which they are going 
can be determined, the probable elevation of their flight- path estimated, 
the guiding features of their course made probable. Their purpose 
can, of course, only be conjectured. It is not strange that birds of 
many if not all kinds travel in the dark, for this absence of light is 
but relative. The stars of themselves are nothing to the birds but as 
they are reflected in the water. When visible in this way, they act as 
finger-posts along a river valley. Such doubtless is the guide to much 
of the annual migratorial flight; and the black lines of mountains 
would be readily recognized as such, while the lights beyond would 
indicate those of another valley, with its star-reflecting river. So com- 
prehensive is a bird’s-eye view that migration has nothing marvellous 
about it. May it not be, too, that these long journeys are commenced 
in daylight, and that when great elevation is reached the direction at 
the outset can be readily maintained ? A bird does not fly in a circle, 
as a man walks when lost in the woods. When fog or excessive cloudi- 
ness is encountered, wandering birds drop to the earth, as is shown by 
water birds being found upon our upland fields, perhaps miles from 
their accustomed haunts. 

Whatever the time of year, we have excellent reasons for expecting 
much of the sky, and should not let our eagerness to see the objects 
there from close at hand cause us to forget from whence they came. 
Do not tell me that a bird, or a butterfly, or even an inanimate object, 
is but a wind-tossed accident. Do I not know it ? If an object is seen 
to come from the sky above, why not at least endeavor to meet it in 
mid-air? By so doing, you take a step into the realms of fancy. Such 
a whim deceives no one, not even the self-elected professors of bird-lore. 
Some facts without fancy are as repulsive as birds without feathers, and 
the world is not likely to suffer because of other views than those of 
the painfully prosaic. Dispute this if you will ; but now 

There is a light cloud by the moon, 

’Tis passing, and Twill pass full soon, 

and to it I would rather attend than listen to any argument. 

Charles C. Abbott. 


THE JAB. 

T IME is a deep-mouthed jar, pictured and dim, 
Wherein Life’s potent purple juices swim, 

With Mirth the vanishing bubble at the brim. 

Charles G. D. Roberts. 


Vol. LVIL— 54 


850 


WOMAN IN BUSINESS. 


WOMAN IN BUSINESS. 

W OMAN’S introduction into the business world is no longer an 
experiment. The feminine wage-earner is now a permanent 
factor in the national economy. The individual drops out of the 
ranks to form a centre around which a home springs up, but another 
woman, not a man, takes her place. The type remains. More and 
more places are being made for women to such an extent that a recent 
census bulletin reports the increase in the number of women employed 
in gainful occupations during the period between 1870 and 1890 to 
have been one hundred and thirteen per cent., while in trade and trans- 
portation the increase was ten hundred and fifty-one per cent. This 
change is significant. It is, in fact, a revolution. Twenty or indeed 
ten years ago the girls of an ordinary middle-class family in which the 
father was a small business-man, an expert mechanic, or a farmer, 
capable of supporting his family with decency if not absolute comfort, 
were expected to stay at home and help with the housework until they 
went to preside over homes of their own. It was considered some- 
thing of a slur to say that a man’s daughters were obliged to go out to 
work. Nowadays this sentiment is reversed. A business training is 
as much a matter of course for the daughters as for the sons. And 
no one is surprised when the daughters prefer putting the training into 
practice instead of devoting their time to household duties enlivened 
with social amusements. The growth of the idea that woman is an 
individual, not an appendage, that she has social duties and moral 
responsibilities as well as men have, is really at the bottom of the 
revolution. 

The change of sentiment in a great measure accounts for the large 
increase in such occupations as book-keeping, copying, typewriting, 
stenography, teaching, selling goods. Of course the new inventions 
have had much to do with woman’s entrance into trade and transpor- 
tation. Until business was done on an immense scale, necessitating a 
great deal of specializing, there was no opportunity for women. When 
a salesman in a dry-goods shop had to go from counter to counter with 
his customer, showing her delicate laces here and heavy bolts of flannel 
there, women were not physically equal to the task of selling goods. 
When the lace counter became a department in a great shop, a weak- 
backed girl was capable of attending it, providing she had other 
necessary qualities. 

The extension of railroads and the invention of the telephone, the 
unprecedented development of the means of communication and trans- 
portation, and the changes in methods of trade, have had much to do 
with the revolution in woman’s position. 

In discussing woman as an economic factor, it is always well to 
remember that it is the business woman who is the new force, not 
the working woman. The industrial revolution has taken the old- 
time domestic arts of spinning and weaving, shoemaking, preserving, 


WOMAN IN BUSINESS. 


851 


canning, and butter-making, and a host of other employments, from 
the home to the workshop, and the women of the working class who 
once eked out the laborer’s wages by home industry have followed their 
lost trades to the factory. It is doubtful whether the change has really 
affected the relative importance of woman’s labor in manufacturing 
processes. 

It is with the business woman, therefore, not the working woman, 
that discussion of the chances of success or failure has to do. The 
factory-worker has no prospects before her, while there are conspicuous 
examples of success among business women. There are also many 
conspicuous failures. In fact, the failures are much more in evidence, 
and the woman who has gone to the top, where there is a high salary, 
appreciation, and a chance to be a live factor in the dynamic social 
movement, is almost an exception. 

Eeasons for the apparent lack of success of the majority of women 
in business and industrial pursuits are numerous. Over some of the 
causes the individual has little control. Time and the general uplift- 
ing and evolution of society alone can make women strong-nerved, 
self-controlled, far-seeing, dependable, responsible individuals. Only 
the development of a strong public sentiment and a feeling of social 
responsibility among employers as well as workers can bring about the 
first requisite for good work, — good wages. 

Woman’s under-development in all the warring centuries when 
because of her physical inferiority she became an appendage of the 
family has made her lacking in judgment, self-reliance, concentration, 
persistence, unable to sink self and family and to take the broad view 
of the whole field, — all which are qualities absolutely necessary for 
success. The law of compensation has not been inoperative in her 
case, it is true, and the combination of the latter-day qualities with her 
old-time virtues must make her a moral power in the solution of social 
problems. 

There are some defects which the individual may overcome if she 
elects. And every woman who aspires to be more than a raw recruit 
in the hopeless army of the unskilled must consider how to overcome 
them. 

Many of the working woman’s inefficiencies are the results of im- 
perfect health. Much of the apathy and of the lack of thoroughness 
which characterize the less skilled workers may be traced to their low 
physical condition, due to overwork and underpay. Statistics show 
that nearly half the women in gainful pursuits are obliged to absent 
themselves from their places of employment on an average fifteen days 
each year because of ill health. 

Good health is the first requisite for the success of the business 
woman. A good brain needs a good body to live in. Too much 
stress has been laid on the cultivation of the mental faculties. We 
must transfer the emphasis to the physical needs. To a certain extent 
the material wants of humanity must be satisfied before any desire 
can be felt for intellectual or spiritual gratification. On good physical 
health as a foundation a woman may construct almost anything she 
chooses. Proper food, baths, rest, and sufficient exercise in the open 


852 


WOMAN IN BUSINESS. 


air are the chief elements that enter into the preservation of good 
health. The business woman must take time to keep well. If social 
pleasures encroach on her resting-time, she must give them up. On 
the other hand, her anxiety to keep up with the fashions or to keep 
up to date in other matters ought not to induce her to make twins 
of herself. It is much better to do one woman’s work well than to 
make a failure in two lines. Only in exceedingly rare instances can 
a woman be at the same time a successful business woman and her 
own dressmaker, milliner, and housekeeper. Business women ought 
to take a few leaves from the experience of men, who have been 
longer in business and therefore know more about it. They take in- 
numerable little recreations, and do not attempt to crowd all of life 
into one day. They get more pay, largely because they have a higher 
standard of comfort. Woman’s standard is gradually going up and 
bringing with it higher wages and greater efficiency. Manual and 
technical education, clubs, the bicycle, and the extension of political 
rights, are gradually elevating woman’s standard of comfort by in- 
creasing her wants. 

Concentration is another thing women need : the bicycle is bring- 
ing it to them in a limited way. The business girl needs to keep her 
mind on her work. If she would reach the goal of success, which 
ought to mean being a thoroughly good workman, she must not let her 
mind wander off to half a dozen things. She must pay attention, 
— learn the details of her business. She cannot afford to stop with 
knowing just what she is paid for doing. One of the most successful 
of the foreign buyers for a New York dry-goods house began her 
career as a stock girl at the lace counter. She spent her spare moments 
asking questions about differences of quality and price, where different 
laces were bought, and the processes of making them. After work- 
hours she haunted the libraries for books on the history of lace, and in 
time became an expert on lace, with a salary of three thousand five 
hundred dollars a year and expenses. 

Good manners are an absolute essential to success. A woman has 
no business in the workday world unless she knows how to be patient 
and polite to others. For her own peace of mind she will never allow 
courtesy to degenerate into familiarity. A certain reserve is desirable 
always in a gentlewoman’s manners. In an office or a workshop it is a 
safeguard. It also insures the employer against the inconvenience of 
having his business impeded by some silly, undignified quarrel. In a 
large insurance office the business was blocked for a day because two 
of the stenographers fell out and refused to explain necessary details 
in passing some documents from one to the other. This absurd prone- 
ness of girls to be intimate friends, exchanging chewing-gum and 
curling-irons one day, and refusing to speak to each other the next, has 
made necessary the rule which is common to all the large mercantile 
shops in New York, that the employees shall not talk to each other 
during working-hours. 

A woman’s personal appearance has a great deal to do with her 
success. It doesn’t matter whether her features are Grecian or her 
nose is a plain retroussS ; but it does matter very much whether she 


THE END OF A CAREER. 


853 


wears a lot of feathers, a much-ruffled silk skirt, and several diamond 
rings. These things have no place in the business world. The first 
element of a business woman’s dress should be suitableness. It should 
also be comfortable. A woman cannot give her undivided attention to 
business if her dress is tight. Some day, no doubt, there will be a 
distinctive dress for business wear. The bicycle is bringing about a 
revolution. Skirts are heavy and clogging when rapid walking and 
quick motions are necessary. They are certainly more graceful and 
prettier, and for home wear and social occasions every one will hope 
to retain them ; but divided skirts or bloomers of dark tweed in winter 
and of black or brown China silk in summer are near the ideal for 
business wear. 

Good health, good manners, persistence, the desire to advance, energy, 
and suitable clothing will go a long way towards making a woman a 
success at anything. If they are not business ability, which is, after 
all, like the inheritance of the poet and the artist, to which one is born 
and which cannot be made, they are the next best thing. If business 
ability means, as some folks think it does, shrewdness, a certain un- 
scrupulousness, callousness to the suffering which a certain economic 
process will inflict on great numbers of human beings, it is perhaps 
just as well that women should not have the genuine article — or is it the 
counterfeit ? 

Perhaps woman has a greater mission in business than her own 
development. It may be that she is to humanize it, to reconcile it to 
morality, from which there is growing up a suspicion that it has been 
divorced. And this suggests that there is another important qualifi- 
cation which the business girl needs, — a sense of social responsibility. 
But that’s another story. 

Mary E. J. Kelley . 


THE END OF A CAREER. 

T HE great grief of his life had come to Robert Graves, society man 
and lady-killer. His diamond engagement ring, which had done 
service in many a season’s campaign, seemed at last gone beyond re- 
covery. He had reached thirty-five summers, during the last fifteen 
of which he had been six times engaged to be married. Six times 
the engagement had been broken. His first engagement, entered 
into at the early age of twenty, had been comparatively easy to 
break, as he was able to urge the plea of extreme youth, but as the 
years passed by he found himself unable to use this plea, and usually 
found considerable difficulty in getting a release from his promise. 
However, the desired result had been brought about by one means or 
another. 

Now Robert Graves, with all his faults, was not a spendthrift, and, 
as he had managed in various ways to secure the return of his engage- 
ment ring after the breaking of the first five of these engagements, he 


854 


THE END OF A CAREER. 


had made the same ring do for the whole collection of girls. To be 
sure, occasional repairs to the ring were needed, especially as one of 
his ex-fiancees threw it in a rage at his feet. Then, too, the setting of 
the stone had to be changed from time to time to keep pace with the 
prevailing styles. Still, it was much cheaper to keep the ring in repair 
than to get a new one. 

But at last Robert’s career of love-making had come to a sudden 
halt, for girl number six, who had just been thrown overboard, was 
not like other girls, or at least not like girls numbers one, two, three, 
four, and five of the Graves collection. In accordance with his custom, 
Robert had sent her a letter telling her that all was over between them, 
and asking for the return of his ring. In reply he had received a 
letter in which the writer said that she was only too happy to release 
him from his engagement, but she flatly refused to return the ring. 
And there he was ; he had lost both girl and ring. To be sure, he 
could get another girl. In fact, he had had his eye on one before he 
had ended his affair with number six. But it wasn’t such an easy 
thing to get another ring, and, even if he did, girls were getting so 
terribly avaricious that he might lose it in the same way. So eco- 
nomical Robert Graves decided that he must in some way get that ring 
back from number six, in order to give it to number seven as soon as 
she accepted him. Of course she would accept him, for the hero of so 
many engagements was looked upon as irresistible. 

As his letter had failed to accomplish its object, he resolved upon a 
personal interview with number six. Upon calling at the well-known 
house he found that the fair one who but a short time ago made his 
heart beat so wildly was at home and would see him. 

She received him coldly. She still wore the ring, but it was on 
her right hand. Politely, but earnestly, he insisted that his ring be 
returned, and politely, but firmly, number six refused. 

“ Mr. Graves, ever since you reached manhood you have had a 
mania for getting engaged ; you have, in fact, become a professional 
fiance. I don’t know how many girls have accepted you only to be 
thrown overboard as soon as your fancy was caught by a new face. I 
once thought I might cause you to change your ways, but I have found 
out my mistake and see that I am no more to you than the others. I 
accept your decision, but I certainly must insist upon keeping this 
souvenir of our two years’ intimacy. It is all I have; I have eaten 
all the candy you brought me, and the books you gave me you have 
borrowed and failed to return.” 

As Robert Graves, society man, Iboked at firm, unyielding number 
six, he saw that she was not to be turned, and that further argument 
was useless. Then there came into the mind of this economical man a 
solution of the whole difficulty, and thus he spoke: “ This ring has 
from years of association become very dear to me. I cannot part with 
it now, and, as you refuse to return it, I don’t see but what I shall 
have to marry you.” 

“ I thought you would,” said number six, softly. And so he did. 

Harry Irving Horton. 


AFTER SEEING A POOR PLAY. 


855 


AFTER SEEING A POOR PLAY . 

T HERE is not much in the plays and playing of the period to lure 
one from the companionship of books in winter. There is so 
little in these performances that means anything, that is not a mere in- 
vention, a charade, a child’s picture ingeniously put together with 
blocks, but showing the seams and lacking real value and significance. 
It is less a reflection of nature, an exposition of the motives of human 
conduct in their relation to current conditions, than a combination of 
selected emotions ordered for theatrical effect. It is the afternoon-tea 
drama, with the gossip inexpertly reported. 

Vainly we search in it for something that seizes on reality and char- 
acter and vitalizes them for our great-grandchildren who are to write 
our history. The last quarter of the century is slipping away in this 
country with scarcely a dramatic expression of its meaning that is more 
than ephemeral. It seems to me an absurdity to assert that because we 
no longer habitually seek revenge by poison and dagger, or carry off 
damsels from towers, or sack the cities of our neighbors through mere 
lust of gain, we are not dramatic. We shall cease to be dramatic only 
when we are wholly virtuous. True, we have learned to suppress much 
show of feeling ; but not only does it rage as fiercely as ever in our 
bosoms, but it leaps forth at moments of our existence which would fill 
the hours of a play. We are indeed so dramatic, so tragic, in our 
lives, the under-current of emotion is so strong, that intelligent persons 
capable of feeling are seldom deeply moved at the theatre, because the 
intensity of their own experience transcends the mimic scene. The 
merest quack of a dramatic doctor may profess familiarity with the 
operations of the mind and heart, yet he lays none of them bare 
before us. It is only genius that can do this at all ; because mediocrity 
is without second-sight, and sees only the things flaunted in its face. It 
is a trite reflection that Shakespeare is for all time because he exposes 
the essential nature of humanity. But contemporaneous conditions 
need new adjustment of old truths, and the art of our age is impotent 
to effect it. 

One turns for cheer from the insipidity of the drama up to date to 
the zestful atmosphere of the romantic play, — the play of Eechter and 
the younger Salvini. Here is something at least superior to one’s own 
encounters with the world, something that is neither dilettantish nor 
analyzed out of all strength. Here is something — be it only melo- 
drama — that meets the imagination half-way and tramples the con- 
ventional under foot. I know a manager whose specialty is the pro- 
duction of “ society” plays. His actors are well chosen, his dramas 
the choicest on the market; no one is better at the business. But I 
found him once in a box of a Bowery theatre, and he sat out the per- 
formance. 

Why should theatrical amusement in the popular sense be inter- 
preted to mean mental dissipation and nothing more ? Why should 


856 


AFTER SEEING A POOR PLAY. 


recreation of the spirits involve an entertainment from which thought 
must be excluded ? The man who is physically tired may find enjoy- 
ment in the performance of acrobats ; and surely one whose brain seeks 
distraction need not employ it laboriously when he observes the intel- 
lectual and emotional exercise of others. The clown has his place in 
the economy of nature ; but who finds folly desirable for daily food ? 
It is my own experience that when worn out in body and spirit the 
reaction after much thoughtless laughter is worse than the previous 
condition I sought to dispel ; whereas true comedy is a gentle stimulant. 
Also, the attention turned to a serious drama excites a sympathetic con- 
nection which soothes one’s own private and special discomfort. 

How few of us are able to surrender ourselves completely to the 
illusion of the theatre! We may enter into the spirit of good panto- 
mime with all of a child’s enjoyment; the circus may still have attrac- 
tions for us; we may hope never to find fairy-tales far-fetched. But 
it is different with the drama. Somehow, there seems to be too much 
calcium light in front and too little of the light of genius behind. A 
hackneyed complaint, no doubt ; but was there ever more cause for it 
than now? 

We moderns are clever enough, and as long as we limit ourselves 
to cleverness no one need yawn. But beyond that we cease to be Gil- 
berts, and are only dull without profundity, or didactic without dis- 
cernment. Either that, or we drift into the joyless exposition of the 
day and become “ philosophers of frankness,” like Ibsen, or anatomists 
of evil, like Zola. Sometimes we are none of these, but only dramatic 
weathercocks, like Sardou. 

Moreover, acting has always seemed to me a rather wretched occu- 
pation : its triumphs as exhilarating and evanescent as a glass of cham- 
pagne; its sober moments like the recovery from a debauch. The 
player must always be filled with the excitement of it, or suffer the 
consequences of reaction. It is a perpetual trade in the emotions for 
the benefit of the careless looker-on ; so that one can fancy the actor 
coming to doubt the sincerity of his own feelings. Insensibly he 
coins his private griefs, hires his soul for plaudits, auctions his most 
sacred experiences to the lowest bidder, and puts his heart on exhi- 
bition. Talma, the illustrious Frenchman, acknowledges something of 
the kind when, in describing his devotion to his art, he says he has 
caught himself in moments of real sorrow unconsciously studying its 
tokens. 

The sensitive soul of Shakespeare felt its anguish keenly. “ He 
was a comedian,” says one of the poet’s most analytical students, — 
“ one of ‘ His Majesty’s poor players,’ — a sad trade, degraded in all 
ages by the contrasts and the falsehoods inseparable from it ; still more 
degraded then by the brutalities of the crowd, who not seldom would 
stone the actors, and by the severities of the magistrates, who would 
sometimes condemn them to lose their ears. He felt it, and spoke 
of it with bitterness : 

“ Alas, , tis true I have gone here and there 
And made myself a motley to the view, 

Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear. 


AFTER SEEING A POOR PLAY. 


857 


“But the - worst of this degraded position is that it eats into the 
soul. In the company of buffoons we become buffoons : it is vain to 
wish to keep clean if you live in a dirty place; it cannot be. No 
matter if a man braces himself ; necessity drives and soils him. The 
machinery of the decorations, the tawdriness and medley of the cos- 
tumes, the smell of the tallow and the candles, in contrast with the 
parade of refinement and loftiness, all the cheats and sordidness of the 
representation, the bitter alternative of hissing and applause, the keep- 
ing of the highest and lowest company, the habit of sporting with 
human passions, easily unhinge the soul, drive it down the slope of 
excess, tempt it to loose manners, greenroom adventures, the loves of 
strolling actresses. Shakespeare escaped them no more than Moliere, 
and grieved for it, like Moliere : 

“ Oh, for my sake do you with Fortune chide, 

The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, 

That did not better for my life provide 

Than public means, which public manners breeds.’’ 

The gentle Frangois Copp§e, in his description of an actor’s funeral, 
has a word of pity, too, for this plight of the player. Yet to-day such 
sympathy seems almost an impertinence, — to-day, when it is thought 
worth while to chronicle the most trivial detail of an actor’s private 
life; to-day, when the actor is found of more importance than his 
art. 

I fancy, though, that even Edwin Booth, with his genius and his 
conscious power of moving in men and women the springs of true 
emotion, was yet sensible of these things. I fancy that in tracing the 
greatness of his Hamlet to his kinship with Hamlet’s temperament and 
character one may take into account this noble actor’s reported antipa- 
thy to acting, — his probable sympathy with the declaration that “ most 
of Hamlet’s speeches would sound better from the mouth of an actor 
than from that of a prince.” 

At the present time we may try to invert the real meaning of the 
lines, 

And almost thence my nature is subdued 
To what it works in, like the dyer’s hand. 

We may contend that the counterfeit of lofty characters should operate 
to impart their dignity of thought and action to the person of the mimic. 
We may argue that this subjugation of the nature is a refining rather 
than a coarsening process ; that it represents the effect of contact with 
beauty more than the deteriorating results of its professional mimicry. 
But in our hearts we know this to be a fallacy. 

It is something of this sort that almost unconsciously enters into 
one’s observation of a theatrical performance. The trick of it is trans- 
parent, the veneering too thin ; the borrowed plumes sit awkwardly on 
the actors ; the imagination is not taken by assault, but merely cheated. 
It is like watching a play from the wings. 

William Trowbridge Lamed. 


858 


HER HAPPINESS. 


HER HAPPINESS. 


i. 

S INCE that day, of which no word 
From her lips is ever heard, 

She has known that at her side 
Sorrow evermore must bide, 

Drink her cup and eat her bread, 
Walk her paths and share her bed, 

Be the last to say good-night, 

Greet her first at morning light, 

Go with her through all her ways, 

To the ending of her days. 

n. 

This is hers at last : to know 
Life has dealt its heaviest blow. 

She has nothing more to dread ; 

All her bitterest tears are shed. 

Pain has now no poisoned dart 
That she fears may reach her heart; 
Neither day nor night can bring 
Any untried suffering. 

in. 

It is something, just to rest, 

Of this dreary peace possessed ; 

Just to slip the long control 
Of her pride-encompassed soul, 

And to let the days move on 
In accepted monotone. 

Not to more anticipate 
This severest blow of fate ; 

Not against its doom to pray, 

Any more by night or day ; 

Not to fear its deadly blight, 

Any more by day or night. 

IV. 

As the storm-tossed mariner 
Finds the desert island fair 
After all the storm’s wild stress, 

So she too is almost glad. 

Is there aught in life more sad ? 

What have been her strife and loss, 
Her despair and pain and cross, 

Who at last can almost bless 
Such a hopeless happiness ! 

Carlotta Perry. 


TIMELY. 


859 


TIMELY. 

T HE loss of profitable tenants is always a serious annoyance to a 
landlord. Especially is this the case when circumstances render 
it extremely doubtful whether satisfactory successors can be secured. 
This was the situation confronting Mr. Jimerton of San Francisco. 
He owned four large buildings situated in the centre of Chinatown. 
The houses covered nearly one-third of the block, and were occupied 
principally by the Gow family and their numerous ramifications. 

The Gows were model tenants. They never troubled Mr. Jimer- 
ton about repairs, or worried as to sanitary improvements. All they 
desired was to be allowed to burrow tunnels underground and divide 
up the space into narrow passages and little compartments, dear to the 
Chinese heart. For these houses Mr. Jimerton received every month 
a rental considerably greater than the value of the structures them- 
selves. The income derived from these buildings was Mr. Jimerton’s 
principal source of income. His daughter was finishing her education 
in Paris, his son was attending a medical college in New York, and he 
and his wife lived very comfortably on California Street, on the rental 
of these houses. 

At this juncture, when it would have been extremely unpleasant 
to suffer from a reduction of income, the Gows threatened to leave. 
Ten years ago other tenants could easily have been found, but times 
are not what they once were in Chinatown. Mr. Jimerton sought 
the chief member of the family and the leader of the society to which 
they all belonged. 

“ What is the matter -?” he asked. “ Have I interfered with you in 
any way ? Haven’t I used my influence successfully with the authori- 
ties? Have your opium-joints or gambling-rooms or your slave-quar- 
ters been interfered with ? Have you ever been called upon by the 
police or the sanitary officers to contribute an excessive amount ? Why, 
then, are you leaving me?” 

The representative of the Gow family was a short, fat, elderly man, 
whose good-natured face was decorated by a pair of big round specta- 
cles and a solemn smile. He admitted that they had not been molested ; 
still he feared they could not remain in Mr. Jimerton’s buildings. He 
explained that the Gows were a commercial and a peaceable people. 
Ever since the original Gow had landed in San Francisco thirty years 
before, prospered, and brought over from Canton hosts of his relatives 
and friends, they had been engaged in trade. Almost every conceivable 
industry was packed into Mr. Jimerton’s buildings, either under- or 
above-ground. The Chinese goods displayed in the store on the first 
floor and guaranteed to the Eastern tourist as direct importations were 
made in little holes and corners at the back of the place. Jewelry, 
shoes, clothing of every description, hats, and furniture were manufac- 
tured on the premises. There were also restaurants, gambling-rooms, 
opium-joints, female slaves, a joss-house, and a theatre. Everything 


860 


TIMELY. 


that a Chinaman or an American in search of novelty could demand 
was to be found there. 

So the Gows prospered, and their society increased until they excited 
the envy of the Sam Yups. The Sam Yups were fighters and preda- 
tory by nature. They would not work, but lived by blackmail. The 
highbinders had approached the Gows and demanded money. For a 
time it was paid, but the demands became so exorbitant that the Gows 
refused longer to submit. Then one of the fierce factional fights which 
periodically sweep over Chinatown began, and threatened seriously to 
cripple Mr. Jimerton’s finances. Several of the Gow family had been 
assassinated and others beaten into insensibility by the Sam Yups. 
Their customers were intimidated. Few dared to deal with them, and 
their business dwindled to almost nothing. Fate was against them, 
and they had decided to seek another place, where they would be 
undisturbed. Mr. Jimerton was in despair. He saw his comfortable 
income vanishing just at a time when he needed it most. Even if he 
succeeded in reletting his building, he knew it would be at a greatly 
reduced rent. Mr. Jimerton’s reflections were painful as he dwelt on 
these things. 

“ Can nothing be done ? Is there no way of getting at these in- 
fernal Sam Yups? I have considerable influence with the chief of 
police.” 

Gow Hin shook his head. It was a case far beyond the reach 
of the police. No American could possibly understand or have the 
slightest influence in these Chinese quarrels. It was fate. A malig- 
nant devil, whose power was greater than that of their joss, was at 
work. Indeed, the joss had ceased the struggle and commanded them 
to move, and there was nothing to do but obey and wait till the evil 
influence of the Sam Yups was removed. They expected to go to a 
town in the interior of the State, where they would be undisturbed. 
Gow Hin assured Mr. Jimerton that personally he did not care to make 
the change. He was fond of life in a large city, and there were certain 
lines of business that must be abandoned in a smaller place ; but what 
could one do when those devils of Sam Yups threatened to stick a 
knife between the ribs of every customer or beat him into insensibility ? 
Besides removal, there was but one way out of the difficulty, and that 
was impossible. Mr. Jimerton caught at the hope. “ What is it ?” he 
asked, eagerly. There was no such word as “ impossible” in Mr. 
Jimerton’s dictionary. 

Gow Hin replied that in the street of the one hundred and seven 
grandfathers in Canton, where the Gows had lived for thousands of 
years, there was a powerful joss, which invariably brought good luck 
to its possessors. Could this joss be brought to America and set up 
among the Gows, the evil spirits which were at present tormenting them 
through the Sam Yups would at once take their departure. 

“For heaven’s sake,” cried Mr. Jimerton, “let us have this joss.” 

Gow Hin shook his head. 

“ Then they won’t part with it ?” said Mr. Jimerton. Gow Hin 
intimated that the branch of the family residing in China could no 
doubt be induced to part with their little brown joss for a considera- 


TIMELY ; 


861 


tion. If there is anything a Chinaman will not sell, it has yet to be 
discovered. 

“ Then,” said Mr. Jimerton, “ let us buy it. I will stand any 
reasonable expense rather than have my houses empty.” 

But Gow Hin still shook his head. The little brown joss could 
not be moved except by a member of the family. 

“ Then why not send a member of the family for it ?” urged Mr. 
Jimerton. “ Surely there are enough of you.” 

But still there remained an objection which appeared insurmounta- 
ble. While the little brown joss brought good luck to its possessors, 
it was fatal to the man who moved it. Not a Gow could be found who 
was willing to cross the Pacific and bring the joss to America, for if he 
did he would surely die within a year. 

Mr. Jimerton cursed such stupid superstition. He interviewed a 
dozen members of the family in vain. All acknowledged that if the 
joss could be brought over their prosperity would return, in spite of 
the SamYups; but no one could be induced to go after it, notwith- 
standing Mr. Jimerton’s liberal offers. Not only would the man die, 
but he would be debarred from the enjoyment of happiness hereafter. 

When Mr. Jimerton had abandoned all hope of finding a Gow who 
would risk his life and future happiness by moving the joss, he was 
surprised by a visit from Gow Hin, who informed him that a foolish 
young fellow had been found who would undertake the mission. His 
name was Gow Sing, and he worked in a laundry near the Presidio. 
Gow Hin believed his relative mad, and did not know whether to 
attribute his condition to the daily sight of the soldiers at the fort, or 
to the influence of a Sunday-school which Gow Sing attended for the 
purpose of perfecting himself in the English language. It may be 
that both these civilizing institutions had influenced Gow Sing’s mind 
and rendered him less superstitious. Still, he could never have been 
induced to undertake to bring the joss across the sea had he not been 
in love. He loved Lue Sue, a slave-girl, and desired to purchase her. 
Lue Sue was beautiful, and the price asked for her was enormous. 
Gow Sing had long despaired of raising the money required to secure 
possession of the girl. Like other members of the family, he heard 
of the liberal offer for bringing the joss to San Francisco. Life without 
Lue Sue was worth nothing: so, after communicating his intention to 
the head of the family, he sought an interview with Mr. Jimerton. 

“You are a sensible young fellow,” said the landlord. “It’s all 
nonsense about any one dying who removes this joss. We Christians 
know better.” 

Mr. Jimerton was well pleased, and contributed liberally to the 
fund that was raised to send for the joss. He also undertook to pro- 
cure a certificate that would enable Gow Sing to land on his return 
without question. The man who was undertaking such a perilous mis- 
sion must have everything made smooth for him. In the matter of 
the certificate Gow Sing was firm. He would cheerfully assume the 
risk of death and future punishment, but not the possibility of being 
refused a landing. That would deprive him of ever seeing Lue Sue 
again. 


862 


TIMELY. 


“That’s all right,” said Mr. Jimerton. “ We’ll have the certificate 
made for a merchant. Then there can be no question about your 
landing.” 

So Gow Sing was described in the certificate as a Chinese merchant, 
Mr. Jimerton and two of his friends appending their signatures to the 
document. 

Gow Sing sailed away through the Golden Gate on the City of 
Peking, bound for China, promising his friends that he would not 
return without the little brown joss. Already there was a better feel- 
ing among the Gows. Confidence was restored by the prospect of the 
presence of the powerful joss. The matter had been kept a profound 
secret from the Sam Yups, for had these fighters been aware that so 
mighty a joss was coming to their rivals the messenger would never 
have reached China alive. 

In due time Gow Sing arrived in Canton. He was warmly wel- 
comed at the street of the one hundred and seven grandfathers by the 
members of his family. He was regarded as a martyr and a hero who 
had deliberately sacrificed himself for the good of his family. Gow 
Sing did not mention his newly acquired scepticism concerning the 
power of the joss, neither did he say anything about Lue Sue. 
Sometimes when they dilated on the instances where the man who 
moved the joss had fallen a victim to sudden death — and his friends 
appeared to delight in relating these gruesome stories — he felt a trifle 
uneasy. Even a residence in America and an attendance on a San 
Francisco Sunday-school cannot entirely eradicate all superstition. 
The liberal terms which Gow Sing was empowered to offer for the 
use of the joss pleased the family. No serious objection was made 
to carrying this powerful protector across the sea. Some of the more 
grasping members of the family thought that a little more money 
might have been squeezed out of the American Gows, but in the end all 
were fairly well satisfied. 

The joss was a little wooden affair, about two feet high. The ex- 
pression on its face was one of extreme confidence. It looked as though 
it did not know what defeat or failure meant. Some such expression 
may be seen on the face of an unusually successful commercial traveller 
in America. It had been made so long ago that the species of tree 
from which it had been carved had become extinct. For thousands of 
years this self-satisfied, smirking little joss had brought prosperity to 
the Gows. 

Gow Sing did not remain long in Canton. The Gows in San 
Francisco were impatiently awaiting his return, and Sing himself was 
anxious to be where he could again see his beloved Lue Sue. The 
members of the family bade farewell to Gow Sing, confidently expect- 
ing that within a year the young fellow would pay for his temerity 
with his life. 

In due time the City of Peking again entered the Golden Gate. 
Gow Sing presented his certificate and was promptly passed ashore. 
The names on the document, attesting that he was a Chinese merchant, 
were above suspicion. The little brown joss was escorted with many 
ceremonies to the Chinese quarter and installed in the place of honor 


TIMELY. 


863 


in the joss-house. The fighting Sam Yups were dumfounded. They 
slunk away into dark holes and corners of the alleys of Chinatown, 
and at once ceased their warfare on the Gows. As for the Gows, in- 
creased prosperity came to them. Customers flocked to their shops, 
and Mr. Jimerton’s houses were again packed full to overflowing. 
Gow Sing purchased Lue Sue, made her his wife, and took her to a 
room which he had fitted up over his laundry near the Presidio. Here 
he enjoyed himself, apparently indifferent to the threatened catastrophe 
hanging over him. 

But Lue Sue had another admirer, who grew wild with rage and 
disappointment when Gow Sing carried her off to his laundry. His 
name was Sam Hee, and he belonged to the Sam Yup society. His 
friends urged him to restrain his anger. Would not the joss soon 
avenge his removal on Gow Sing ? and then the girl would again be in 
the market. But the methods of the joss were altogether too slow to 
suit the impetuous Sam Hee. He began to investigate matters, believ- 
ing that the joss would be none the worse for a little private aid. He 
soon made an important discovery. Gow Sing had been landed on a 
certificate describing him as a merchant. This was a common device, 
and always excited congratulations and laughter among the Chinese, 
when successful. This joss which these barbarians of Americans called 
“ Uncle Sam” made a nice distinction between a laborer and a merchant. 
Uncle Sam was a foolish old joss, and had been bamboozled and 
swindled a thousand times. There were occasions, however, when he 
got a grip on some unfortunate and never let up till he had deported 
the offender. Now Sam Hee had no objection to using a knife or a 
hatchet when necessary, but if the same end could be accomplished by 
other means he preferred milder methods. He would make this Uncle 
Sam assist him in getting rid of his rival. If it could be proved that 
Gow Sing, a laborer, had been described as a merchant, he would be 
deported. Sam Hee sought the official representing the great joss 
Uncle Sara, and laid the matter before him. The official looked up 
the certificate, and found that Gow Sing had been described as a mer- 
chant. Sam Hee offered to prove beyond a doubt that Gow Sing had 
always been a laborer. 

When the official saw the names on the document he gave a long, 
low whistle. Here was an opportunity he had long been waiting for. 
Mr. Jimerton and his friends were his bitter enemies. Had they not 
tried by every means in their power to prevent his appointment to 
office? Had they not sent derogatory reports of his administration to 
Washington? Was not Mr. Jimerton himself a candidate for the 
place? 

u Oh, this is too rich,” chuckled the official. “ This is simply a 
pudding, a snap. This ridiculous Gow joss has brought luck to more 
than the Gows. Let me prove that this Gow Sing is a laborer, and the 
men who have carelessly made oath that he is a merchant will dance to 
my tune, and dance lively too.” 

The official acted promptly. The man who would live and hold 
office in San Francisco must not be dilatory. That same day Gow 
Sing, while at work in his laundry, thinking of the beautiful Lue Sue, 


864 


TIMELY. 


who was now all his own, was arrested, charged with landing on a false 
certificate. There was consternation among the Gows, but their trepi- 
dation was nothing compared with that felt by Mr. Jimerton and his 
friends. The Gows saw the beginning of the vengeance of the joss ; 
Mr. Jimerton saw the ugly word perjury looming in the distance. 
Hundreds of laborers had been landed on similar certificates : there had 
never before been any trouble in these cases. 

Bail was promptly furnished for Gow Sing. Mr. Jimerton sought 
Gow Hin, the head of the society. 

“ Something must be done/’ he said. 

“ It is the will of the joss,” replied Gow Hin, his solemn smile 
growing a little deeper, his almond-shaped eyes blinking behind the 
big, round spectacles. 

“ The joss be d — d !” cried Mr. Jimerton. “ If it is proved that 
Gow Sing is a laborer, and is deported, I and my friends will be prose- 
cuted for signing that certificate.” 

But the Gows were somewhat indifferent. They had their joss, 
and were enjoying a season of unparalleled prosperity. Let the land- 
lord fight his own battles in the courts. As for Gow Sing, they re- 
garded him as doomed from the moment he undertook to transport the 
joss from China. 

Mr. Jimerton, however, determined that the Gows should help him 
in the time of his trouble. 

“ You’ve got to help me out of this,” he said. “ If you don’t I’ll 
evict every last one of you, joss and all. Out of my buildings you’ll 

go.” 

But now the Gows were as anxious to stay in Mr. Jimerton’s build- 
ings as they had formerly been to leave. Another removal of the joss 
was not to be thought of. If such an indignity were offered it, it 
might avenge itself on the whole family. It would be absolutely im- 
possible to find any one who would undertake the responsibility of 
moving it. Ho other member of the family would incur such a fearful 
risk, even for the sake of a woman, as that assumed by Gow Sing. 
Clearly the Gows could not move. Mr. Jimerton saw his advantage 
and pressed it. Something must be done. Before his arrest Gow Sing 
might have been spirited away to some other part of the State, or even 
to New York, but now that was impossible. They well knew that the 
eyes of a deputy marshal were never off him. The official had no 
idea of losing sight of the young Chinaman. 

Gow Hin settled his yellow-buttoned cap more firmly on his shaven 
head. “ Best easy,” he said ; “ the joss must not be moved again.” 

When the case of Gow Sing, charged with illegal landing, was called 
for trial, a certificate was handed to the court. It was a death certifi- 
cate, and stated that Gow Sing had died of a disease known as beri-beri. 
It was signed by a physician duly appointed by the health officers to 
certify to all deaths occurring in Chinatown. 

“That,” said Mr. Jimerton, “was what might be called timely.” 

Gow Sing’s bones were duly shipped to China, and Lue Sue went 
weeping back to slavery, after her brief dream of happiness. 

H. C. Stickney. 


THE WASHINGTONS IN OFFICIAL LIFE. 


865 


THE WASHINGTONS IN OFFICIAL LIFE. 

D EEPLY appreciative as Washington was of every mark of confi- 
dence and affection that came to him from the country that he 
had served, it is evident from various expressions in his letters that the 
official communication brought to Mount Vernon by Mr. Charles 
Thomson in April, 1787, was not received by him with unmixed 



ELEANOR CUSTIS, GRANDDAUGHTER OF MRS. WASHINGTON.— FROM MINIATURE, BY SULLY, 
IN POSSESSION OF EDWARD SHIPPEN, ESQ., OF PHILADELPHIA. 


pleasure. The acceptance of the honors and duties of the chief execu- 
tive office in the new republic necessitated for Washington the relin- 
quishment of much that was dear to him. The active, useful life of a 
country gentleman was especially suited to his habits and tastes, with its 
experiments in farming or in rearing stock, its days spent in the saddle 
superintending the work of fencing and ditching or the laying out of 
roads, varied by an occasional dinner with a neighbor or by the enter- 
taining: of gmests at home ; and we can well believe that he spoke 
Vol. LVII.— 55 



866 


THE WASHINGTONS IN OFFICIAL LIFE. 


from his heart when he wrote in January, 1789, “The first wish of 
my soul is to spend the evening of my days as a private citizen on my 
farm.” 

Leaving Mount Vernon at this time meant to Mrs. Washington 
the breaking up of many cherished family ties. The two younger 
grandchildren, Eleanor Custis and her brother George Washington 
Parke Custis, whom his grandmother usually called Washington, ac- 
companied her to New York, but her elder granddaughters, Martha 
and Elizabeth, who were in the habit of spending weeks with her 
at Mount Vernon, remained with their mother, Mrs. David Stuart, in 
Alexandria. 

Mrs. Washington did not accompany her husband upon this journey 
to the capital, which was really a triumphal progress, but set forth some 
weeks later, under the care of the General's nephew, Robert Lewis, and 
several other gentlemen. Young Lewis has left in his diary a fresh, 
boyish account of the journey as far as Baltimore, near which place 
Mrs. Washington was met by a number of gentlemen, Dr. McHenry 



HOUSES ON HIGH STREET, PHILADELPHIA, OCCUPIED BY PRESIDENT WASHINGTON AND ROBERT 
MORRIS DURING THE FIRST AND SECOND ADMINISTRATIONS. 


among them, who conducted her and her escort from Hammond's Ferry 
to the Carrolls', where, according to the narrator, a most agreeable re- 
ception awaited them. “ Mrs. Carroll,” he says, “ expected Mrs. 
Washington, and had made considerable preparation. We found a large 
bowl of salubrious ice punch, with fruits, etc., which had been plucked 
from the trees in a green House, lying on the tables in great abun- 
dance ; these after riding twenty-five or thirty miles without eating or 
drinking was no unwelcome luxury. However, Mrs. Carroll could not 
complain that we had not done her punch honor, for in the course of 1 
quarter of an hour (the time we tarried) the bowl which held upwards 
of two gallons was entirely consumed, to the no little satisfaction of us 
all. We then made our congee and departed, the gentlemen to their 
respective homes, — myself with Dr. McHenry, who invited me very 
politely to take a family dinner with him.” 

In the evening there was a reception at Dr. McHenry's, where, says 
young Lewis, “ was gathered together the handsomest assortment of 


THE WASHINGTONS IN OFFICIAL LIFE. 


867 


women that I had ever seen,” and where, he later records, he himself 
fell a victim to the charms of a certain Miss Spear. Nor were the 
weary travellers allowed to rest after they had retired to their rooms 
for the night, as poor Mr. Lewis tells us that while he was struggling to 
sleep and to think of Miss Spear at the same time, a serenade began 
which lasted until two o’clock in the morning. This left but a short 
night for repose, as five was the hour for rising, in order to leave Balti- 
more betimes and thus avoid any further celebrations. 

At Chester Mrs. Washington was met by the First Troop of City 
Cavalry, under Captain Miles, and another troop of horse, under Cap- 
tain Bingham, accompanied by which mounted escort she proceeded to 
Gray’s Ferry, where she was joined by her devoted and congenial 
friend Mrs. Robert Morris, who conducted her to her own home, amid 
discharges of artillery and the enthusiastic rejoicings of the populace. 
When she reached the Morris house, on High Street, Mrs. Washington 
made her only public address of which there is any record. She rose, 
and, standing in the carriage, thanked the companies of soldiers which 
had escorted her, and the citizens also, in a few gracious words. Two 
days later, when the same military escort was in readiness to accompany 
her to Trenton, Mrs. Washington, with the thoughtful consideration for 
the comfort of those about her which was one of her strongly marked 
characteristics, begged them to return home, when a few miles from 
Philadelphia, as the weather appeared threatening. The welcome 
which Mrs. Washington met on 
her journey through New Jersey 
was second only to that which 
had been accorded the President 
a few weeks earlier, and when his 
Excellency, Mr. Morris, and other 
distinguished gentlemen met her 
and Mrs. Morris at Elizabeth- 
town Point, long and loud were 
the cheers of the people, while 
shouts of “ Long live President 
Washington, and God bless Lady 
Washington !” resounded from all 
sides. 

Mrs. Washington was fifty- 
seven years of age at this time, 
being three months younger than 
her husband, although for some 
reason writers who had better 
opportunity of knowing the truth 
upon this subject than Mr. 

Thackeray have represented her 
as older than the General. The 
portrait painted nearest to this 
period is that by Robert Edge Pine, but this picture is so much less 
attractive than that painted by Stuart ten years later that we like best 
to think of “the first lady in the land” noble and dignified as she 



MINIATURE OF MRS. WASHINGTON— FROM ORIGI- 
NAL IN POSSESSION OF GENERAL G. W. CUSTIS 
LEE, OF LEXINGTON, VIRGINIA, ARTIST NOT 
KNOWN. 


868 


THE WASHINGTONS IN OFFICIAL LIFE . 


appears in this favorite portrait, which makes us realize that she pos- 
sessed a beauty in advanced years quite different from the beauty of her 
girlhood, but just as charming in its own way. 

The President was painted so often during the early years of his 
administration that he almost daily records a sitting to some artist, — 
one of the penalties of fame that greatly annoyed him. Both John 
Ramage and Edward Savage painted portraits of Washington in 1789, 
and the spirited Turnbull, which Mr. Custis says gives the best idea 
of his figure and bearing, was executed in 1790. 

When Pine was at Mount Vernon in 1785, in addition to his 
portraits of the General and Mrs. Washington he painted charming 
pictures of Elizabeth Custis, who afterwards married Mr. Law, a son 
of Lord Ellenborough, and of her brother Washington. The former 
represents a lovely girl of nine with a profusion of brown curls, while 
the latter is a graceful picture of a boy of four or five with a bow or 
branch in his hand. 

The old Virginia in which Washington and his wife were reared 
was essentially aristocratic and English in life, customs, and traditions. 
That from this colony, and from its most exclusive circle, should have 
come the two persons who were destined to give form and balance to 
the political and social life of the Republic, must be looked upon as 
something more than a happy accident, unless we count birth, breeding, 
early surroundings, and all the circumstances that go to form character 
simply accidents. An executive mansion presided over by a man and 
woman who combined with the most ardent patriotism a dignity, 
elegance, and moderation that would have graced the court of any Old 
World sovereign, saved the social functions of the new nation from 
the crudeness and bald simplicity of extreme republicanism, as well 
as from the luxury and excess that often mark the sudden eleva- 
tion to power and place of those who have spent their early years in 
obscurity. 

Washington, to whom nothing connected with his office seemed 
small or unimportant, and who realized that this was naturally a 
period for the establishment of precedents, gave much time and thought 
to the proper adjustment of his social as well as of his political duties. 
Mrs. Washington warmly seconded her husband’s efforts to combine 
republican simplicity with the form and ceremony befitting the din- 
ners, levees, and receptions of the Chief Executive. Thus, although 
the President simply bowed to each guest as he was introduced to him 
at his Tuesday afternoon levees, making it very evident that the more 
familiar hand-shake was to be omitted, at Mrs. Washington’s Friday 
evening receptions he chose to be considered simply as “a private 
gentleman,” mingling with the company and entering into conversation 
according to his own inclination. Upon these occasions he is described 
as wearing “ a fancy-colored coat and waistcoat, and black small-clothes, 
without hat or sword, while at his own levees he appeared in a black 
velvet coat and breeches, his hair in full dress powdered and gathered 
behind in a silk bag ; yellow gloves, and holding a cocked hat with a 
cockade on it, and the edge adorned with a black feather about an inch 
deep. He wore knee- and shoe-buckles, and a long sword with a 


THE WASHINGTONS IN OFFICIAL LIFE. 


869 



finely wrought and polished steel hilt, the coat worn over the blade, 
the scabbard of white polished leather.” 

At the President’s levees the guests were introduced by one of 
the secretaries, Mr. Tobias Lear or Major William Jackson, or some 
personal friend, who was expected to pronounce the name distinctly. 
Later, when the doors were closed and the circle formed for the day, 
the President, who possessed the 
royal trait of remembering faces and 
associating the name with the face, 
began at the right hand and passed 
from one guest to another, calling 
every person by name and saying 
a few words to each one. In these 
days of hurried official receptions 
and great crushes, such a levee as 
this seems dignified and elegant, and 
yet sociable enough to be removed 
from any imputation of the mo- 
narchical form, towards which some 
of his detractors accused Washington 
of tending. 

More than one description has 
come down to us of Mrs. Washing- 
ton’s Friday evening receptions, with 
their plum-cake, tea, and pleasant 
intercourse, all ending at the early 
hour of nine. There was nothing 
excessive in the gayety of these 

drawing-rooms, and they may even have been a trifle dull ; but the 
hostess wisely set the fashion of early hours, rising about nine o’clock 
and saying, with a graciousness and dignity that well became her, 
“ The General always retires at nine, and I usually precede him.” 
The short evening proved to be like the small caviare sandwiches that 
are now handed around to whet the appetite, making the guests feel 
like coming again, for these receptions were largely attended by the old 
Knickerbocker and Patroon families, the Yons and the Vans, as well 
as by the wives and daughters of all government officials resident at 
the capital. The President sometimes records, “ A great number of 
visitors (gentlemen and ladies) this evening to Mrs. Washington,” or, 
“The visitors this evening to Mrs. Washington were numerous and 
respectable.” Can we imagine them otherwise than eminently re- 
spectable, those stately dames and courtly cavaliers? 

If, as Mrs. Burton Harrison says, “ Mrs. Washington’s heart was in 
the highlands of her beloved Potomac,” her thorough breeding enabled 
her to conceal her distaste for the restraints of official life, which were 
compensated for in no small measure by the warm expressions of 
esteem and affection with which she and her husband were met at 
every turn. Physically as well as mentally weary she must often have 
been, as immediately after her arrival in New York, before she had 
had time to recover from her long and tiresome journey from Mount 


MAJOR WILLIAM JACKSON.— FROM PORTRAIT, 
BY TRUMBULL, IN POSSESSION OF THE HIS- 
TORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 


870 


THE WASHINGTONS IN OFFICIAL LIFE. 


Vernon to the capital, two dozen or more ladies called upon her. 
Thus, instead of employing herself in ordering her household, as this 
model housewife would have liked to do, she, as the wife of the Presi- 
dent, was obliged to spend her mornings in the drawing-room, and her 
afternoons at state dinners. 

Among those who gathered around Mrs. Washington in New York 
were Mrs. George Clinton, wife of the Governor of the State, Mrs. 



MRS. LIVINGSTON OF CLERMONT. WIFE OF JUDGE LIVINGSTON.— FROM PORTRAIT IN POSSESSION 
OF MRS. ROBERT E. LIVINGSTON, OF NEW YORK. 

Livingston of Clermont, widow of Judge Livingston, Mrs. Chancellor 
Livingston, Mrs. Montgomery, her sister-in-law, Mrs. James Duane, 
another Livingston, whose husband was Mayor of New York, Mrs. 
Ralph Izard, better known to the gay world of the metropolis as 
beautiful Alice De Lancey, and Mrs. John Jay. These ladies, and many 



THE WASHINGTONS IN OFFICIAL LIFE. 


871 


others, came to do honor to the wife of the great general and statesman, 
and, finding in her the elements needed to bind men and women to- 
gether in social intercourse, kindliness, courtesy, and self-forgetfulness, 
they continued to assemble weekly in the old Franklin house on Pearl 
Street, or in the Macomb house on Broadway, to which the President 
removed some months later. 

In the midst of political and social functions that were extremely 
wearisome to this simple-hearted and thoroughly domestic couple, it 
is pleasant to read in the General's New York diary of frequent drives 



MRS. JAMES DUANE, BORN MARIA LIVINGSTON.— FROM PAINTING OWNED BY GENERAL 
JAMES C. DUANE, U.S.A. 


into the country with Mrs. Washington and the children, and of in- 
formal dinners at Captain Mariner's tavern in Harlem with Mrs. 
Washington, Mr. and Mrs. John Adams, their daughter and son-in- 
law, Mrs. William Smith and her husband, Governor Clinton, Major 
Jackson, and Mr. Izard. The house where Captain Mariner kept a 
tavern at this time was the fine old mansion upon the heights, now 
known as the Jumel house. 

Theatre-going seems to have been a favorite recreation of the 
Washingtons, both in New York and in Philadelphia. The theatre 
in the former place is described as a poor sort of affair, capable of 



872 


THE WASHINGTONS IN OFFICIAL LIFE. 


accommodating only about a hundred persons. It was situated on the 
north side of John Street, near Broadway. The President wrote in 
his diary, Tuesday, November 24, 1789, “Went to the play in the 
evening — sent tickets to the following ladies and gentlemen and invited 
them to seats in my box, viz. : Mrs. Adams (lady of the Vice-President), 
Gen 1 Schuyler and lady, Mr. King and lady, Major Butler and lady, 
Col 0 Hamilton and lady, Mrs. Green — all of whom accepted and came, 
except Mrs. Butler, who was indisposed.” 

A German, named Feyles, says Mr. Lossing, was the leader of the 
orchestra, and had composed the President’s March for this occasion, 



LANSDOWNE, THE HOME OF GOVERNOR JOHN PENN, AND SUBSEQUENTLY OF MR. WILLIAM BINGHAM. 

which tune was played at the moment when Washington and his friends 
entered the theatre. It was afterwards slightly altered, and has been 
known as “Hail, Columbia” ever since.* 

It was upon this occasion, or some similar one, that the following 
incident occurred, while Wignall was performing the part' of Darby in 
the interlude of “ Darby’s Return,” a play written by William Dunlap. 
Darby, an Irish lad, recounts his adventures in the United States and 
elsewhere. When he told of what befell him in New York at the 


* The words of “Hail, Columbia’’ were written by Judge Joseph Hop- 
kinson, of Philadelphia, in the summer of 1798, when a foreign war seemed 
inevitable, Congress being in session in Philadelphia to deliberate upon this 
important subject. Judge Hopkinson himself explained the circumstances 
under which this national song was written. 

Some popular words to be used in the theatre and adapted to the tune of 
the President’s March were desired. A number of persons had endeavored to 
compose some suitable words, without success. Judge Hopkinson essayed the 
task, in order to help a former school-mate who was a member of the theatri- 
cal company. The result proved eminently successful, because the verses fitted 
the time as well as the tune, being truly American and non-partisan. In a 
few weeks “ Hail, Columbia” had taken hold of the popular heart, and estab- 
lished for itself a place which it has ever since held among the national songs 
of America. 


THE WASHINGTONS IN OFFICIAL LIFE . 


873 


inauguration of the President, etc., “ the interest expressed by the au- 
dience/’ says Dunlap, “ in the looks and the changes of countenance 
of the great man (Washington) became intense. 



MRS. WILLIAM PETERS. BORN SALLY ROBINSON, WIFE OF JUDGE RICHARD PETERS— FROM CRAYON 
IN POSSESSION OF HER GREAT-GRANDSON, MR. CHARLES E. DANA, OF PHILADELPHIA. 

“At the descriptive lines, 

“ A man who fought to free the land from woe, 

Like me , had left his farm a-soldiering to go, 

But having gained his point, he had, like me , 

Return’d, his own potato ground to see. 

But there he could not rest. With one accord, 

He is call’d to be a kind of — not a lord — 

I don’t know what; he’s not a great man, sure, 

For poor men love him just as he were poor, 

the President looked serious ; and when Kathleen asked, 

How look’d he, Darby ? Was he short or tall ? 

his countenance showed embarrassment, from the expectation of one 
of those eulogiums which he had been obliged to hear on many public 



874 THE WASHINGTONS IN OFFICIAL LIFE. 

occasions, and which must doubtless have been a severe trial to his 
feelings. 

“ The President was, however, speedily relieved by Darby’s decla- 
ration that he had not seen Aim.” 

In Philadelphia there was doubtless more informal sociability in the 
life of the Washingtons than in New York, as during their previous 
visits to the Quaker City they had made many friends there. In his 
diary written while attending the Convention of 1787, General Wash- 
ington recorded many dinners at the Willings’, Binghams’, Powells’, 
Mr. John Penn’s, at Lansdowne, and Mr. Benjamin Chew’s, at his 
country home Cliveden or at his town residence on Third Street. 



BELMONT, RESIDENCE OF JUDGE PETERS, NOW IN FAIRMOUNT PARK, PHILADELPHIA. 


Notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Chew was a loyalist during the war 
and was obliged to leave Philadelphia for a season, General Wash- 
ington renewed his friendship with him when peace was declared, 
and, as if to prove that if he was just he could also be generous, 
gave Mr. Chew the position of judge of the High Court of Excise 
and Appeals for Pennsylvania under the new government, it having 
been clearly proved that he had committed no overt act during the 
Revolution. 

No diary kept bv the President during his residence in Philadel- 
phia, from 1790 to 1797, has been found ; but from letters and journals 
of old residents we gather odd bits of information about dinners, tea- 
drinkings, and calls. From these we learn that the President was 
upon intimate terms with Judge Peters and delighted in his hours of 
leisure to drive out to Belmont, where the judge and his wife lived in 
hospitable old-fashioned style. Hours of rest and recreation were those 
spent at this beautiful country home, amid whose shaded avenues, with 
their charming glimpses of the river, Washington’s thoughts must 
often have turned to his own home somewhat similarly situated upon 
the banks of the Potomac. Here, in the delightful society of the 
witty jurist, he could forget, for a time, the cares of state ; for, although 


THE WASHINGTONS IN OFFICIAL LIFE. 


875 


represented as an habitually grave man, Washington was by no means 
averse to a joke, and Judge Peters’s witticisms possessed the admirable 
quality of amusing without leaving a sting behind them. Mr. Robert 
Morris was another friend of Washington’s who by his genial humor 
was able to enliven many a dull hour. To him and to his partner, 
Mr. Thomas Willing, the General had turned for aid in the darkest 
days of the Revolution, and now in peace and prosperity they renewed 
their friendly intercourse. Living side by side on High (or Market) 
Street, we can imagine Mrs. Washington and Mrs. Morris exchanging 
all manner of neighborly civilities, while their husbands met together 
in council formally and informally. In addition to his own home at 
the southeast corner of Sixth and Market Streets, and the house at 190 
Market Street occupied by the President, Mr. Morris owned another 
house on the same street, in which General Walter Stewart and his beau- 
tiful wife, Deborah McClenachan, were domiciled. Colonel Clement 
Biddle, an old friend and former companion in arms, was living at 



COLONEL CLEMENT BIDDLE.— FROM A MINIA- 
TURE IN POSSESSION OF MR. ALEXANDER 
BIDDLE, OF PHILADELPHIA. 



MRS. CLEMENT BIDDLE, BORN REBECCA COR- 
NELL, OF RHODE ISLAND.— FROM A MINIA- 
TURE IN POSSESSION OF MR. ALEXANDER 
BIDDLE, OF PHILADELPHIA. 


this time at 38 Walnut Street, where the sign of “ Notary, Scriviner, 
and Broker” announced that he had renounced the sword for the quill. 
He and his beautiful Rhode Island wife, Rebecca Cornell, had shared 
with the General and Mrs. Washington the hardships of the winter 
of ’77 and ’78 at Valley Forge, where Mrs. Biddle’s mot her- wit and 
housewifely skill had won the commander-in-chief’s consent for her to 
remain in camp with her husband. Colonel Biddle resigned his com- 
mission before the close of the war, but was made United States 
Marshal for Pennsylvania in 1787, and in 1794 again took up arms 
under his old commander when the Whiskey Rebellion called him into 
the field. Many interesting stories of the President’s visits to her 
father’s house on Walnut Street have come down to this generation 
through Colonel Biddle’s daughter, Mrs. Nathaniel Chapman, who as 
a child was particularly impressed by the grandeur of his coach-and- 
four. Miss Susan Binney, who lived with her parents directly oppo- 
site the Washington residence, also retained a vivid recollection of the 
President’s coaches. “ General Washington,” she said, “had a large 


876 


THE WASHINGTONS IN OFFICIAL LIFE. 


family coach, a light carriage, and a chariot, all alike cream-colored, 
painted with three enamelled figures on each panel, and very hand- 
some. He drove in the coach to Christ Church every Sunday morning, 
with two horses; drove the carriage-and-four into the country, to 
Lansdowne, the country seat then of Mr. Penn, afterwards of the 
Binghams.” Mr. Nathaniel Burt, in speaking of the residence of the 
Washingtons in Philadelphia, says that the coach with six horses, 
which General Washington used in going to the Senate, at Sixth and 



MRS. JAMES GIBSON.— FROM PORTRAIT. BY GILBERT STUART, IN POSSESSION OF EDWARD 
SHIPPEN, ESQ., OF PHILADELPHIA. 


Chestnut Streets, was presented to Mrs. Washington by the govern- 
ment of Pennsylvania, having been built in London expressly for 
Governor John Penn, from whom it was purchased for Mrs. Wash- 
ington. It was of cream color, richly decorated with gilt medallions, 
and was considered by some persons “ too pompous for a Republican 
President.” Mrs. Washington used frequently to drive in this car- 
riage, with her lovely granddaughter Nellie, to visit Mrs. Penn at 
Lansdowne, taking with her Miss Elizabeth Bordley, the daughters 
of Robert Morris, or other young ladies to whom Miss Custis was 
particularly attached. 

The President’s servants wore liveries of white cloth trimmed with 



THE WASHINGTONS IN OFFICIAL LIFE. 


877 


scarlet or orange, which must have added much to the imposing ap- 
pearance of this coach-and-four, which was exceeded in magnificence 
only by that of “ Mr. William Hamilton of the Woodlands,” which 
had once been the wonder of the town. 

Miss Binney, afterwards Mrs. Wallace, remembered the Washing- 
tons distinctly, having met them often at public balls and in Mrs. 
Washington’s drawing-room, where the General’s manner impressed 
her as gracious and pleasant. “ It was,” she said, “ Mrs. Washington’s 
custom to return her visits on the third day,” and when she called 
upon her neighbor Mrs. Binney, one of the secretaries, Mr. Lear or 
Major Jackson, would escort her. These gentlemen also accompanied 
the President upon his daily constitutional, when they would invari- 
ably cross to the sunny side and walk down Market Street together in 
silence. The young lady who, from her window, watched the three 
handsome gentlemen in their cocked hats and picturesque attire, in 
recalling the scenes of her youth for the benefit of a later generation 
says that she often wondered why they never seemed to have anything 
to say to each other, knowing that Washington was on most friendly 
terms with his two secretaries. Silence and gravity seem to have been 
habitual to this man, who bore upon his shoulders a heavy burden of 
care ; yet we read of pleasant bantering between him and young Henry 
Lee and Lund Washington, his cousin and steward, at Mount Vernon, 
while Mrs. James Gibson, in later years, grew quite indignant over a 
newspaper article in which it was stated that Washington never danced. 
She said that he was exceedingly fond of the society of young people, 
and would often leave his study in the evening to enjoy a Virginia 
reel with Nellie Custis and her friends. 

The Bordleys lived on Union near Third Street, not far from the 
Washingtons, and quite close to the Willings and the Binghams. Miss 
Bordley had been a school-mate of Nellie Custis at Annapolis, and, 
accompanied by a mutual friend, Martha Coffin from Portland, had 
spent many vacations at Mount Vernon. 

These three friends seem to have done all the fond, foolish things 
of which the old-fashioned school-girl was capable. They wrote ro- 
mantic letters to each other, many verses, especially Miss Bordley, the 
one most favored of the Muses, and finally had their portraits painted 
for each other. To this latter fond folly this generation is indebted for 
three lovely pictures, one of Nellie Custis, by Sully, in a head-dress 
like that in which Siddons is sometimes represented, one of Elizabeth 
Bordley, painted when she was Mrs. James Gibson, which she playfully 
calls “ The Rural Lady,” * and one of Martha Coffin, who afterwards 
married Mr. Richard C. Derby, of Boston. 


* When Mrs. Gibson sent this portrait by Stuart to Mrs. Richard C. Derby, 
who was then living in Portland, Maine, she mailed at the same time the fol- 
lowing verses : 

You’ll now receive the “ Rural Lady 
I fear you’ll think her face too shady ; 

But that’s the fancy of the painter, — 

A very good one, by the bye, — 

For if that shade were any fainter, 

The wrinkles would appear, — 0 fye ! 


878 


THE WASHINGTONS IN OFFICIAL LIFE. 


Mrs. Richard Durdin, Mrs. Bingham, and Mrs. John Travis, one 
of the lovely Bond sisters, were among the beautiful matrons of this 
administration. Mrs. Durdin was an intimate friend of the Wash- 
ingtons, and often entertained them at her home on Walnut. Street. 
She afterwards married William Lewis, who held the positions of 



MRS. RICHARD C. DERBY.— FROM PORTRAIT, BY GILBERT STUART, IN POSSESSION OF DR. PERRY, 

OF NEW YORK. 


District Attorney and District Judge under Washington, began life 
as a Chester County farmer, and later became so distinguished in his 
profession that he could afford to entertain his friends by telling them 
how Alexander Hamilton had once outwitted him. Another great 
lawyer, who lived on Market Street above Eighth, was William Rawle, 
who had married a lovely Quakeress, Sarah Coates Burge. The Wash- 
ingtons frequently dined with Mr. and Mrs. Rawle, and upon one 
occasion, while his “ elders and betters” were at dinner in the early 



THE WASHINGTONS IN OFFICIAL LIFE. 879 

afternoon, as was the custom in those days, Mr. Rawle’s son William, 
seeing the GeneraPs cocked hat and dress sword upon the hall table, 
put the hat on his head and with the sword in his hand stepped out 



MRS. JOHN TRAVIS.— FROM PORTRAIT, BY GILBERT STUART, IN POSSESSION OF MR. TRAVIS 
COCHRAN, OF PHILADELPHIA. 


into the street and strutted up and down, to the great amusement of 
the small boys in the neighborhood and of the passers-by in general. 

Twice while Philadelphia was the seat of government was that 
city visited by yellow fever. Mrs. Elizabeth Drinker and Jacob 
Hiltzimer both dwell upon the ravages made among their friends and 
acquaintances by this dread disease, the latter stating that its frequent 
appearance was the chief reason why it was finally decided to make 
the new city of Washington the national capital instead of Philadel- 
phia. In August, 1793, there were a number of cases of the fever, 



880 


THE WASHINGTONS IN OFFICIAL LIFE. 



and from this time for some years there were sporadic cases until the 
frightful epidemic of 1798, when Mr. Hiltzimer lost his life. 

Great anxiety was felt by the President’s friends during the epi- 
demic of 1793, as he could not be induced to quit his post until Sep- 
tember 10, when he was finally prevailed upon to retire to Mount 
Vernon, whither he had sent his family some weeks earlier. 

In 1794, Washington’s official duties not permitting him to make 
more than a flying visit to his Virginia home, a house in Germantown 

was taken, where he and 
his family remained during 
July and August. This 
house, upon the Main 
Street, opposite Market 
Square, is now occupied 
by Mr. Elliston P. Morris. 

It was while Gilbert 
Stuart was living in Ger- 
mantown that the Presi- 
dent and Mrs. Washing- 
ton made so many visits 
to his studio. He executed 
his first celebrated head of 
Washington at his studio 
at the southeast corner of 
Fifth and Chestnut Streets. 
This portrait, which Stuart 
never entirely finished, he 
kept in his Germantown 
quarters, copying from it 
many other portraits, call- 
ing it his one hundred 
dollar bill, and, whether 
with the desire of making 
money by it, or because he 
was attached to a work 
which was a true inspiration of genius, persistently excusing himself 
from giving it up, until the patience of its owner was quite exhausted 
and he finally accepted a copy in place of the original. 

Historians and chroniclers dwell with pathos upon the closing days 
of official life in Philadelphia, recalling the President’s last drive to 
the Senate, his coach followed by enthusiastic crowds of citizens, where 
he read his brief farewell address, which brought tears to many eyes, 
while it is related that at the banquet which followed, gayety and 
laughter gave place to sadness. Thus it seems that whether gay or 
grave, genial or reserved, whatever may be the final verdict with re- 
gard to the characteristics of Washington, there have been few great 
men more beloved by the people and by those intimately associated 
with them than this man whom our nation honors more and more as 
the years go by as their noblest and most single-hearted patriot. 

Anne Hollingsworth Wharton. 


MRS. WILLIAM RAWLE.— FROM PANEL PORTRAIT, BY GIL- 
BERT STUART, IN POSSESSION OF FRANCIS RAWLE, ESQ., OF 
PHILADELPHIA. 


BOOKS OF THE MONTH. 


881 


of tfje iftlontlj. 


It is related that a lady was introduced to Sir Morell 
Mackenzie at a London soiree as “ John Strange Winter,” 
and when he increduously repeated the name, she replied, 
“ Oh, yes, I’m Booties’ Baby.” Whereupon the great 
physician drew a friend aside and confided to him that he had just met a poor 
demented lady who was introduced as a man and thought herself a baby. And 
this same jocund lady is the author, beside Booties’ Baby, of a half-dozen 
stories which every reader of fiction knows and likes and re-reads whenever 
the mood for judiciously mingled fun and sentiment overtakes him. 

The last book by Mrs. Arthur Stannard, called The Truth- Tellers, is just 
published in the Lippincott Series of Select Novels, and it is one of the most 
amusing and charming of her many tales. Miss Mortimer of London, sister 
of Sir Thomas Mortimer of Fynlan, “ five hours from six hundred miles” to 
the north, has just learned that that eccentric baronet has died and left her 
guardian of his five children, whom she has never seen. She is not any longer 
young, and lives a fashionable life of sedate ease. The idea of going to the 
north shocks her immeasurably, and she decides to send for her nephews and 
nieces, forlornly expecting to find them youthful barbarians. They prove to 
be handsome and lusty, and far less objectionable than she supposed, but they 
have been brought up on a rigid system of truth-telling, which leads to the 
most amazing results in the select circle of Miss Mortimer’s conventional 
friends. The tale runs on to a climax in the love-making of Ernestine, the 
eldest girl, and Lord Dalston, and ends as the amused reader would have it. 


The Truth-Tellers. 
By John Strange 
Winter. 


“ Experience is a wonderful teacher, though often a very 

ship W By U Thomas s ^ ow one >” anc *’ we ma y ac ^> a cost ly an( * dangerous one. 

Walton. It i s w ith the above sentence that Mr. Thomas Walton, 

author of Know your Own Ship, the latest of the Lippin- 
cott publications in practical science, opens his well-condensed manual, and it 
is to supply the harvestings of experience to those who need them that the 
hand-book has been prepared. Mr. Walton is an eminent naval architect, and 
lecturer to ships’ officers in the Government Navigation School at Leith, and 
he is therefore an authority on the subject in hand, which, more amply 
expressed, is the simple explanation of the stability, construction, tonnage, and 
freeboard of ships. The substantial little volume is designed for the use of 
ships’ officers, superintendents, draughtsmen, and others who have to do with 
shipping in any form, and its text and abundant illustrations render it probably 
the best treatise devoted to this specialty. 


It is said to be not all fiction, — the story that the office of 
in Sight ^of^the unliveried steward of etiquette has been created in certain 
riet Riddle Davis. Washington families, whose social code, calls, dinners, cor- 
respondence, are all managed by a polite gentleman-servant 
in the guise of a guest or friend. Upon this novel and piquant theme has been 
Vol. LVIl— 56 


882 


BOOKS OF THE MONTH. 


hung the spicy tale called In Sight of the Goddess , by Harriet Riddle Davis, 
just issued in Lippincott’s Lotus Library. 

Like the previous novelettes of this charming little library of gold and 
green, this tale is a breezy narrative of American life, full of satire, banter, 
drollery, and love. The typical Western family newly transplanted in the fash- 
ionable soil of the capital and elevated to a cabinet position is pilloried, and 
the scandal of the town is served up, with plenty of light condiment, in 
repartee and abundant conversation. Running parallel with all this is the 
love-story of Stephen Barradale, private secretary to Secretary of the Treasury 
Childs, as well as lackey to his family, and Constance, the great official’s daugh- 
ter. That he wins her at last is an open secret which will not dull the edge of 
the delighted reader’s relish. 

The author of Idylls of Inverburn should know well how 

A Marriage by to write stories of provincial life. He is a born celebrant 

Capture. By Robert r 

Buchanan. °f country manners and country pathos, and never has 

Robert Buchanan, throughout his long and busy career 
as poet and story-teller, written anything sweeter or more romantic than this 
short tale called A Marriage by Capture, just published by the Lippincotts in 
their delicate little set of short stories in stiff covers, The Lotus Library. 

The narrative is a swift one, laid in Ireland, where a lawless set of gen- 
tlemen and peasants, equally intemperate and unscrupulous, are represented a& 
carrying off Miss Catherine Power of Castle Craig for the benefit of her reck- 
less cousin, Patrick Blake, who wants her estates, of which he is next heir, and 
her love. Blake is pursued by a rival lover, Philip Langford, and is taken 
into custody ; but when he is about to be tried, a letter is received from Miss 
Power which absolves her cousin. She returns quietly to her home, and the 
story reveals that her real captor was Philip Langford. When he is wounded 
nearly to death, Catherine betrays her affection for him, and thus, after all, he 
wins a wife by capture. 


CURRENT NOTES. 


883 





t 

f 

T 

■f 

J&u 

■f 

J&o 


WRITES : 

y^FTER being 
completely worn 
out from constant 
nervous strain, I 
was advised to use 
the genuine 
JOHANN HOFF’S 
MALT EXTRACT. 
It has benefited 
me so wonderfully 
that I have become 
its strongest advo- 
cate. 




o^r> 

t 
i 

•4r 


Ask for the genuine 

JOHANN HOFF’S 

MALT EXTRACT. 

Avoid Substitutes. 


^7 




EISNER & MENDELSON CO., 

SOLE AGENTS, NEW YORK. 


'f 

•f- 

* 

0^0 

3^ 

f 

J^O 

ot^L. 

J2^ 

J^o 

Ji^o 

Ji^o 

f 

Ji^u 


884 


CURRENT NOTES. 


Verdi’s First Music. — The first musical signs made by Verdi were omi- 
nous. They were in connection with the street-organ, and all the world 
knows what it has subsequently suffered from Verdi being on the street-organs. 
Think of London alone! Also of the late Mr. Babbage, and Mr. Bass’s London 
street-music bill ! An itinerant organ-grinder used to come betimes to the Ron- 
cole inn, when little Verdi would run to stand and gaze in wonderment at the 
musician and his music, nor would he leave the attraction until fetched away. 
One especial favorite with the child was Bagasset, a decrepit violinist, who pre- 
dicted to the innkeeper that his son would be a great musician some day. 
Verdi helped this poor fellow in after-years, when the prophecy had been amply 
fulfilled. 

When Verdi was about seven years old, his father added a spinet, or piano- 
forte, to his worldly possessions. The child had already shown some taste for 
music, for, besides the street-music episode, the priest at Roncole had kicked him 
down the altar steps for paying more attention to the music from the organ than 
to his duties as acolyte, or server, at mass, a post which his naturally quiet de- 
meanor had obtained for him. No sooner was the piano in the house than 
young Verdi went at it with a will, until one day* because he could not find 
some favorite chord upon the key-board, he was discovered in great anger be- 
laboring the instrument with a hammer ! — Blackwood's Magazine. 

No ScENE.^-See the man. 

Is the man wild of eye and dishevelled of hair? 

The man is wild of eye and dishevelled of hair. 

Perhaps the man is about to make a scene ? 

Ah, no. 

The man is an artist of the modern school, which never makes scenes, — 
merely posters . — Detroit Tribune. 

Newspaper Files under Guard.— A complete file of each of the news- 
papers that have been published in Chicago since the fire — in fact, more com- 
plete than is to be found in many of the newspaper offices — is one of the fea- 
tures of the Chicago Public Library. When the editors of the various news- 
papers are appealed to in regard to articles that have appeared in their papers, 
they with one accord refer the applicant to the Public Library. In addition to 
persons so referred, there are a large number of people who, knowing of these 
files, are constantly wanting either the whole or a portion of the articles they 
have read, but failed to preserve. Many of these requests are for articles of 
very recent date, and the area from which they come is only limited by the cir- 
culation of the Chicago papers, together with such papers as make excerpts 
from them. 

There is probably nothing in the library that is the source of more request 
than these files of Chicago newspapers, and there is certainly nothing more closely 
guarded. This latter fact accounts for the file in the Public Library being more 
perfect than are many of those in the offices where the paper is published. It 
is not quite easy to understand why a person who would not think of tearing a 
page from a book will ruthlessly mutilate a newspaper file that is far more 
valuable. But the fact remains, and for this reason the newspaper files at the 
Public Library are constantly guarded. No one is permitted to examine them 
save under the surveillance of the guard. — Chicago Tribune. 


CURRENT NOTES. 


885 




886 


CURRENT NOTES. 


She Snubbed Napoleon. — Mme. de Chevreuse, a representative of one 
of the noblest families in France, declined the honor which Napoleon wished 
to confer on her, that of being maid of honor to his sister-in-law, the Queen of 
Spain. She afterwards became Josephine’s dame du palais , but always affected 
to look down on the Imperial court. One day she went to a reception at the 
Tuileries, blazing with diamonds. “ What splendid jewels !” remarked Napo- 
leon. “ Are they all real ?” “ Mon Dieu, sire, I really don’t know, but at any 
rate they are quite good enough to wear here.” 

About Spiders. — My attention was called by a clerk in a drug-store to a 
web which had been superbly decorated with flakes and scales of logwood. I 
thought at first that this beautiful passementerie effect had been produced acci- 
dentally, but after watching for a few minutes I saw a spider descend into the 
box of logwood, affix a thread of silk to a flake of the dye, hoist it to the web 
above, and securely fasten it to one of the transverse strands. The glittering 
scales moved at the slightest jar, or when they were struck by a current of air, 
and were dazzling to the eye. This little decorative artist had indeed con- 
structed a truly palatial residence. 

Some spiders unquestionably are affected by music to a marked degree. 
On one occasion I noticed a spider which had swung down from the ceiling of a 
church and hung suspended just above the organist’s hands. The organist 
informed me that he had repeatedly noticed that spiders were affected by music. 
Several days afterward, while seated at the organ, I observed the same spider. 
Several times I drove her away and enticed her back by playing alternately soft 
andante and loud bravura selections. Professor C. Reclain, during a concert 
at Leipsic, saw a spider descend from one of the chandeliers while a violin solo 
was being played, but as soon as the orchestra began to sound it quickly ran 
back . — Boston Herald. 

Sources of Great French Fortunes. — Madame Boucicaut was first a 
laundress and the daughter-in-law of a laundress, who married a hatter at 
Mortagne, in Normandy. She was engaged in the laundering department at 
the Petit St.-Thomas mart, and found her opportunity in lot sales of damaged 
silks and odds and ends of machine-made lace. She used at night to make up 
what she bought at these sales into cravats, jackets, and children’s frocks, ac- 
cording to patterns she studied at the Petit St.-Thomas. On her way in the 
morning to her work she sold them in a market. She did so well that she had 
soon to get help, and then took a poky shop in the Rue du Bac, where the west 
entrance to the Bon Marche now stands. The rule was cheapness. Nobody 
was ever taken in. 

In the tentative struggles she and her husband learned business without 
heavy risk. She could not be called an old woman when she died. After giving 
away nearly three million pounds in acts of justice, friendship, and benevolence, 
she left a fortune valued at over seven million pounds . — London Truth. 

Couldn’t Deny It. — “ I’ve taken all your loose furniture,” said the con- 
stable, looking about the room, “ and the judgment isn’t satisfied yet. I’ll have 
to levy on the fireplace.” 

“ Great Caesar !” exclaimed the debtor. 

“Yes,” replied the constable, “that’s what I am .” — Chicago Tribune. 


CURRENT NOTES. 


887 








888 


CURRENT NOTES. 


King James’s Books. — Some very fine binding was executed for King 
James I., who during his entire life was an enthusiastic patron of letters and 
art. In some of his books the thistle is introduced with heavy corner-pieces, 
and the arms in the centre. One fine piece of work, now in the British Museum, 
is in bright brown calf, powdered with flower-de-luce. Another folio in crimson 
velvet has the arms of England embroidered on both sides, with gold thread on 
a ground-work of yellow silk. The king’s initials are worked above. The 
lettering is in leather, and the boards are tied together with red ribbon, con- 
stituting a regal book in every particular. John Gibson, in Scotland, and the 
Barkers, in England, were appointed to be the king’s binders ; but there is 
little trace of their work now extant. — Chambers's Journal. 

The World’s Papers. — A statistician has learned that the annual aggregate 
circulation of the papers of the world is calculated to be 12,000,000,000 copies. 
To grasp any idea of this magnitude we may state that it would cover no fewer 
than 10,450 square miles of surface, that it is printed on 781,250 tons of paper, 
and, further, that if the number 12,000,000,000 represented, instead of copies, 
seconds, it would take over three hundred and thirty -three years for them to 
elapse. In lieu of this arrangement we might press and pile them vertically 
upward to gradually reach our highest mountains. Topping all these and even 
the highest Alps, the pile would reach the magnificent altitude of four hundred 
and ninety, or, in round numbers, five hundred miles. Calculating that the 
average man spends five minutes reading his paper in the day (this is a very 
low estimate), we find that the people of the world altogether annually occupy 
time equivalent to one hundred thousand years reading the papers. 

Where she drew the Line. — “ Dishere politics is gwine ter make 
trouble,” he said, thoughtfully. 

“Is yer dis’p’inted ag’in?” asked his wife. 

“ I is. Ebry time I stahts in ter run dey tells me I’s a dahk hoss.” 

“ Let ’em go on. Let ’em go on,” she rejoined, with suppressed indignation. 
“ Ye kin stan’ bein’ called a dahk hoss. But ef dey had said ‘ yaller dawg’ or 
‘brindle mule’ I sut’ny would hev smote ’em .” — Washington Star. 


Cormorants. — They are far the largest and most striking in appearance of 
our common English sea-fowl. A male cormorant is a yard long, and very strong 
and heavy, and, though more quaint than beautiful whether flying, diving, or 
sitting on the rocks or buoys, it is a far more interesting creature than the sea- 
gull, — a wonderful instance of adaptation of form to special needs, and of per- 
manence of type enduring from remote ages, for the fossil cormorant hardly 
differs from those which are now fishing from the cliffs in which their petrified 
ancestors are embedded. Our common “great black cormorant” is not only the 
most representative type of his family, but a link with the inhabitants of the 
shallow seas of both the Old and New Worlds. He is found throughout Europe, 
in North Africa, Egypt, and the greater part of Asia, in Eastern North America, 
and, a little changed by distance, in New Zealand and Australia. Lastly, he 
is the only bird, except the hawks and falcons, which is trained to assist man in 
the capture of living prey, and in this vocation he is of all birds, by sense, 
memory, and affection, incomparably the best . — London Spectator. 


CURRENT NOTES. 


889 




The Highest Testimony 
in the Land. 

The Official Reports of the 
United States Government, 1889, 
Canadian Government, 1889, 
New Jersey Commission, 1889, 
Ohio Food Commission, 1887, 
show “ Cleveland’s Superior ” to be 
the best baking powdet manufac- 
tured, being the strongest of all 
the pure cream of tartar powders. 



Baking Powder 


The hour's now come ; 

The very minute bids thee ope thine ear ; 

Obey and be attentive. 

The Tempest. — Act I., Sc. I. 

The wisdom of Shakspeare is unquestioned. His writings enforce conviction ; and the 
application of some of his precepts to daily living has made for right conduct and enlight- 
ened progress. 

What a fascinating story “The Tempest” is! How subtly and delightfully the play 
moves on from the opening scene of storm and confusion to the happy termination ! So move 
our lives ; from scenes of tempest and storm, of worry and contest in the struggle for life, 
they pass to what we hope may be a haven of rest. 

So much- for ourselves ; but for those others who depend upon us for their support ? 

No Prospero’s wand, no Ariel’s wing, nor spirits “ from their confines called,” can be of 
avail to them. The play is a play, but life is inexorable. In the present lives the future. 
In the midst of life is death. 

Listen, listen, listen well ; 

Canst not hear the tolling bell? 

From the distance hear the knell 
Of the tolling, tolling bell? 

In so far as it lies in human power THE PENN MUTUAL can make the ending less terrible 
for those dependent ones, — can to some degree rob death of its terrors. 

The hour’s now come ; 

The very minute bids thee ope thine ear ; 

Obey and be attentive. 

Address, stating age, 

The Penn Mutual Life Insurance Co., 

921=3=5 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 





890 


CURRENT NOTES. 


Shutting the Eyes to See. — Mr. Trevor-Battye and his one comrade on 
the island of Kolgueff. off the northern coast of Russia, had sighted a choom 
(Samoyed hut), and were making toward it with great eagerness, when a heavy 
fog settled upon them, and presently as they made their way over the low hills 
they found themselves unable to agree as to the right direction. Time passed, 
and they became utterly confused. Still, they must find the £amoyeds, and 
finally Mr. Trevor-Battye pulled himself together. 

“ I remembered how one day when it was very hot I threw a jacket over 
the bough of a tree where my Cree Indian said we would pick it up on our 
return. We hunted all that day and the next, lay out that night, and the fol- 
lowing evening as we were going home I remembered my jacket. 

“A jacket hanging on a bough in the middle of a pathless forest is no 
very easy thing to find, but the Cree shut his eyes, remained so for a minute or 
two, and then, turning half round, walked straight away. I followed, and at 
the end of an hour or so we came straight up to the jacket. 

“ This, as I say, I now remembered. Then I shut my eyes and thought. 
After a moment I could, as it were, see the choom, and so clearly that I knew I 
could walk up to it. 

“ I opened my eyes. All was fog, dense fog, but, pointing, I said to my 
companion, 1 There is the choom straight over there,’ which was almost the 
opposite direction from where we had supposed it to be. 

“ We shouldered our things and marched on, and, sure enough, it was not 
long before we saw ahead of us the dim outline of the choom looming through 
the fog.” — Youth’s Companion. 

Curious Facts about the Eye. — A very curious fact is the impossibility 
of moving your eye while examining the reflection of that organ in a mirror. 
It is really the most movable part of the face. Yet if you hold your head fixed 
and try to move your eye while watching it you cannot do it — even the one- 
thousandth of an inch. 

Of course if you look at the reflection of the nose or any other part of your 
face your eye must move to see it. But the strange thing is that the moment 
you endeavor to perceive the motion the eye is fixed. This is one of the reasons 
why a person’s expression as seen by himself in a glass is quite different from 
what it is when seen by others . — New York Herald. 

A Large-Hearted Musician. — Gottschalk’s generosity has been the 
subject of many anecdotes. Wandering into a music-hall in New Orleans, one 
evening, he heard the manager announce that a little girl who was to play the 
piano was ill and could not appear. Gottschalk went behind the scenes and 
volunteered to take her place. The little, girl was delighted, but remarked, 
doubtfully, — 

“ You had better look at the score. The piece is rather difficult.” 

Gottschalk gravely remarked that he thought he could manage it, and was 
permitted to go on the stage. The audience recognized him, and of course went 
wild with delight. 

Before he left the stage the great artist emptied his small change into his 
hat and sent it around among the audience for collection for his little prot'eg'ee, 
a kindness which resulted in a substantial benefit for the grateful lassie. — 
Chicago Post. 


CURRENT NOTES. 


891 




That terrible wash-tub! 

This is the way it looks to the 
women who do their washing in 
the old-fashioned way. They 
dread it — and no wonder. All 
because they won’t use Pearline. 
Use Pearline — use it just as 
directed — soak, boil and rinse the 
clothes — and the wash-tub won’t be 
a bugbear. You won’t have to be 
over it enough for that. No hard 
work — no inhaling of fetid steam — 
no wearing rubbing — no torn clothes 
— nothing but economy. 

Peddlers and some unscrupulous grocers will 
tell you “this is as good as” or “the same 

it T3 1 as P ear hne.” IT’ 

JjcLCKI is never peddled. 





PROVIDENT LIFE AND TRUST CO. 

OF PHILADELPHIA. 

Attention is directed to the new Instalment-Annuity Policy of the Provident, 
which provides a fixed income for twenty years, and for the continuance of the 
income to the widow for the balance of her life, if she should survive the instal- 
ment period of twenty years. 

In everything which makes Life Insurance perfectly safe and moderate in cost, and 
in liberality to policy-holders, the Provident is unsurpassed. 


childrem 


Teething 


For Children While Cutting Their Teeth. 

Ha Old and Well-Tried Remedy. 

FOR OVER FIFTY YEARS. 


MRS. WINSLOW’S SOOTHING SYRUP 

has been used for over FIFTY YEARS by MILLIONS of MOTHERS for their CHILDREN WHILE TEETH- 
ING, with PERFECT SUCCESS. IT SOOTHES THE. CHILD, SOFTENS the GUMS, ALLAYS all PAIN, 
CURES WIND COLIC, and is the best remedy for DIARRHCEA. Sold by Druggists in every part of the 
world. Be sure and ask for Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing: Syrup, and take no other kind. 


TWENTY-FIVE CENTS A BOTTEE. 


892 


CURRENT NOTES. 


Taken On. — “ Want a situation?” said Oldtimer. 

“ Yes. Business was dull, and I was discharged from my last place,” re- 
plied the young man. 

“ You shall have a chance. I was afraid you had severed your connection 
with somebody .” — Boston Bulletin. 

Do Horses Weep? — Do horses weep? is a question discussed by The 
Admiralty and Horse Guards Gazette. It tells us that there is a well-authenti- 
cated case of a horse’s weeping during the Crimean war. On the advance to 
the heights of Alma a battery of artillery became exposed to the fire of a con- 
cealed Russian battery, and in the course of a few minutes it was nearly de- 
stroyed, men and horses killed and wounded, guns dismounted, and limbers 
broken. 

A solitary horse, which had apparently escaped unhurt, was observed 
standing with gaze fixed upon an object close beside him. This turned out to 
be his late master, quite dead. 

The poor animal, when a trooper was despatched to recover him, was found 
with copious tears flowing from his eyes, and it was only by main force that he 
could be dragged away from the spot, and his unearthly cries to get back to his 
master were heart-rending. 

Apropos of the intense love that cavalry horses have for music, a corre- 
spondent of the Gazette writes that when the Sixth Dragoons recently changed 
their quarters a mare belonging to one of the troopers was taken so ill as to be 
unable to proceed on the journey the following morning. Two days later 
another detachment of the same regiment, accompanied by the band, arrived. 
The sick mare was in a loose box, but, hearing the martial strains, kicked a 
hole through the side of her box, and, making her way through the shop of a 
tradesman, took her place in the troop before she was secured and brought back 
to the stable. But the excitement had proved too great, and the subsequent 
exhaustion proved fatal. 

Sharp Words. — Early in 1805 Thurlow’s lifelong rival, Lord Lough- 
borough, passed away, and the news brought from the surviving lawyer the con- 
fession, “ Well, I hated the fellow. He could parlez-vous better than I could.” 
When told of the remark of George III. on hearing of the death, “ I have lost 
then the greatest scoundrel in my dominions,” he added the phrase, “Said he so? 
Then, by God, he is sane.” To the Prince of Wales he remarked of Lough- 
borough that he had a marvellous gift of the gab, but was no lawyer. Pitt 
died early in 1806, and when the news was announced to Thurlow the expres- 
sion to which he gave utterence was, “ A damned good hand at turning a 
period !” — Temple Bar. 

Experience Required. — One day while mending the roof of his house a 
Japanese lost his balance, and, falling to the ground, broke a rib. A friend of 
his went hurriedly for a hakim (doctor). 

“ Hakim, have you ever fallen from a roof and broken a rib ?” was the first 
question the patient asked the doctor. 

“Thank heaven, no,” replied the hakim. 

“Then go away at once, please,” cried Chodja. “ I want a doctor who has 
fallen from a roof and knows what it is.” 


CURRENT NOTES. 


893 


Letters from the People. 


I wish to praise Dobbins’ Electric Soap very highly, and 
say it was through my mother, manager of Bethesda 
Home, 78 Vernon Street, of this city, that I first used this 
wonderful soap, and, as a labor-saving and clothes-saving 
soap, I consider it the best on the market, as I have tried 
them all, and none of them will do the work that Dobbins’ 
Electric Soap will. I recommend Dobbins’ Electric Soap 
to all my friends and acquaintances as 1 have the oppor- 
tunity, and give it all the praise I can. I use a great deal 
of it, as I wash my baby’s clothes myself, and give it to 
my washerwoman to wash the family clothes with. 

Mrs. Geo. J. English, 

86 Charles St., Springfield, Mass. 

Constantly since 1877 I have used Dobbins’ Electric 
Soap, and, though I have tried many other kinds, I have 
never found any that gave me such satisfaction as Dobbins’ 
Electric. I send you 300 wrappers for fifteen volumes of 
your Sunset Series of books. 

Mrs. F. J. Boyden, Leominster, Mass. 


I do not care to use any soap but Dobbins’ “ Electric." 
I am very glad that I am able to get it. It is the cheapest 
in the end. Mrs. P. A. Nebanus, Chicago, III. 

I, having used Dobbins’ Electric Soap for the past 
twenty-five years, wish to say that I prefer it to any other. 
It certainly is a wonderful soap. It will do more and 
better work than any other soap I have ever tried. I have 
sent wrappers to Dobbins’ Soap Mfg. Co., Philadelphia, 
for some of their beautiful premiums. 

Mrs. N. P. Holmes, Box 156, Provincetown, Mass. 

I have forwarded you to-day 60 Dobbins’ Electric Soap 
wrappers, and wish in return the picture you send out for 
that number. You make the best laundry soap made. I 
have used many different brands, but yours is the best. I 
use it in the bath as well. I always keep a supply on 
hand, as it gets dry and hard, and lasts just thrice as long 
as the cheap, common trash called soap. 

Mrs. E. B. Johnson, Nahant, Mass. 


Ask your Grocer for Dobbins’ Electric Soap . Thirty years’ 

sale and reputation as the best and most economical Soap in the 
world. 

DOBBINS SOAP MFG. CO. PHILADELPHIA. 

The New England Conservatory of Music, Franklin Square, Boston, Mass., 
is undoubtedly the best equipped School of Music in the world. Its pupils are 
always in demand as teachers, on account of their superior musical knowledge 
and their practical readiness in applying it. In addition, the Conservatory 
offers the best instruction in Oratory and Modern Languages. The charge is 
extremely small when its advantages as compared with those offered by similar 
schools are considered. Prospectus sent free upon application. 


Climbing Elephants. — Elephants are able to make their way up and 
down mountains and through a country of steep cliffs, where mules would not 
dare to venture and even where men find passage difficult. Their tracks have 
been found upon the very summits of mountains over seven thousand feet high. 
In these journeys an elephant is often compelled to descend hills and mountain- 
sides which are almost precipitous. This is the way in which it is done. The 
elephant’s first manoeuvre is to kneel down close to the declivity. One fore leg 
is then cautiously passed over the edge and a short way down the slope, and if 
he finds there is no good spot for a firm foothold he speedily forms one by 
stamping into the soil if it is moist or kicking out a footing if it is dry. When 
he is sure of a good foothold, the other fore leg is brought down in the same 
way. Then he performs the same work over again with his feet, bringing both 
fore legs a little in advance of the first foothold. This leaves good places all 
ready made for the hind feet. Now, bracing himself up by his huge, strong 
fore legs, he draws his hind legs, first one and then the other, carefully over the 
edge, where they occupy the first places made by the fore feet. This is the way 
the huge animal proceeds all the way down, zigzag, kneeling every time with 
the two hind legs while he makes footholds with his fore feet. Thus the centre 
of gravity is preserved and the huge beast prevented from toppling over on his 
nose . — Public Opinion. 


894 


CURRENT NOTES. 


A Natural Mistake. — She is a very affable woman, and she would in- 
variably say the right thing at the right place if she were not near-sighted. 

“ I see,” she said, as she entered the drawing-room of her friend, “ that you 
have caught the annual craze.” 

“ To what do you refer ?” 

“ The rage for chrysanthemums. And that one which you have tossed so 
carelessly into the corner is one of the biggest and most beautiful I ever saw. 
What an exquisitely odd color ?” 

“ Yes,” was the reply. “ It’s beautiful, and I prize it very highly. Only 
it isn’t a chrysanthemum. It’s my Skye terrier taking a nap.” — Washington 
Star. 

The Tomb of Rachel. — The pools of Solomon lie on the left of the road 
to Hebron, and at a distance from Jerusalem of about two hours. Distances in 
the East are measured by time, not by miles, as with us. The distance in 
question, however, depends considerably on the condition of the road. When 
last I journeyed along it, the mud was so deep we had much difficulty in getting 
onward. At one place the horses came to a stand-still. They were unable to 
drag the carriage, and we had to alight in order to ease the ship to make head- 
way. We were sorry for the poor brutes, they were so cruelly used by the 
driver. One of them bled from the fierce blows he inflicted. 

After a distance of one hour from the city, we arrived at the tomb of 
Rachel. The existing building in its present form is Saracenic, without claim 
to antiquity. It consists of four low walls, surmounted with a dome. It is 
much reverenced by Christians, Jews, and Mohammedans. It is interesting in 
its sacred associations, and is much visited by pilgrims. The spot will ever be 
regarded with tender emotion and sympathy. Here it was that Rachel, the 
loved wife of Jacob, died after having given birth to the babe she named 
Benoni, “ son of sorrow.” The patriarch later on referred to the sad event and 
related how he buried her “ in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem.” 

The tomb is at no great distance from this latter place. For many centuries 
the spot was marked by a pyramid of stones, and it was in the fifteenth century 
that the existing structure was erected. We leave it and pass onward along the 
slope of the valley. We notice on our right the town of Bet- Jala, situated on 
the mountain-side. It appears to correspond with the ancient Giloh, noted as 
the birthplace of Ahithophel, the counsellor of Absalom. Its inhabitants are 
Christians. — Quiver. 

Training of Greek Athletes. — Greek boys began to be trained in bodily 
exercises at a very early age, — often at ten years. The problem was not merely 
to develop strength and health, but to secure grace and beauty, perfect beauty 
being thought the outer expression of perfect strength. It was this passion for 
the beautiful in every phase of Greek life which made its sculpture and archi- 
tecture the noblest the world has seen. But the thought had a still deeper root. 
The Greek assumed that it was only in the perfect and symmetrical body that 
the well-balanced mind could dwell : so physical culture held a foremost place 
in his plan of education, and the daily toils of the palaestra (or wrestling-field) 
and the gymnasium were a part of the life of the growing lad, and a part not 
to be shirked. The part taken by boys in the Olympic games shows how deeply 
this festival had taken root in Greek thought and life. — St. Nicholas. 


CURRENT NOTES. 


895 



Gheeks L>ike 


Health shows itself in one’s face — 
in the complexion. 


HE U s E r ~BUSch ’q 



TRADE MARK. 


—the food drink — is the greatest beautifier of the age, because it 
is the greatest health agent. The pure and palatable nutriment of malt 
and hops. It is the greatest life-sustainer and flesh-builder. 


For Sale by all Druggists. 

Prepared by ANHEUSER = BUSCH BREWING ASSOCIATION, 

ST. LOUIS, U. S. A. 

Send for handsomely illustrated colored booklets and other reading matter. 


■ brown’s! 

CAMPHORATED 

SAPONACEOUS 

DENTIFRICE 

FOR THE 

TEETH 


THE BEST TOILET LUXURY AS A DENTIFRICE IN 
THE WORLD. 

TO CLEANSE AND WHITEN THE TEETH, 

TO REMOVE TARTAR FROM THE TEETH, 

TO SWEETEN THE BREATH AND PRESERVE THE 
TEETH, 

TO MAKE THE GUMS HARD AND HEALTHY, 


USE BROWN'S CAMPHORATED SAPONACEOUS DENTIFRICE. 

Price, Twenty=Five Cents a Jar. For Sale by all Druggists. 


Don’t Worry Yourself, and don’t worry the baby; avoid both un- 
pleasant conditions by giving the child pure, digestible food. Don’t use solid 
preparations. Infant Health is a valuable pamphlet for mothers. Send your 
address to the New York Condensed-Milk Company, New York. 


896 


CURRENT NOTES. 


Hunting the Found.— There are queer ways of making a living in New 
York. One Sunday a man advertised that he had found a wallet with a large 
sum of money in it, and gave street and number where he could be addressed. 
Thirty-five men called, and fifteen others wrote him letters. The losers stated 
the sum at all the way from four thousand to twenty-five thousand dollars, 
and most of them gave the denominations of the bills. He was promised all 
the way from one thousand to seven thousand dollars to restore the lost wallet, 
but, there being none to restore, he couldn’t do it. No person advertises a 
“ found” that he doesn’t receive calls from at least a dozen people who seem to 
make a business of trying to get possession of lost articles belonging to others. 
They must be successful sometimes, or they would not keep it up. — Detroit Free 
Press. 

Errata. — The Mazarin Bible, published more than four hundred years 
ago, was full of errors. In an edition published two hundred years later the 
word “ not” was omitted from the seventh commandment, from which error the 
book received the name of the “ Adulterous Bible.” In the printed directions 
for conducting Catholic services appeared the line, “ Here the priest will take 
off his culotte.” The word calotte means an ecclesiastical cap or mitre. Culotte 
means, in broad Saxon, a man’s underclothes. A blunder equally scandalous 
was made in a review of a historical work as follows : “ It was well understood 
what were the plans of the opposition after the queen’s chemise.” For “ chemise” 
read “ demise.” 

The Rev. Dr. Todd was given some relics to present to a museum. In 
presenting them he alluded to “ the lives of the saints.” The remarks when 
published alluded to the “ lies of the saints,” which so enraged the giver that 
he wrote to Dr. Todd and demanded their return. 

At a large public demonstration in England a popular and prominent man 
arose to speak, and was greeted with enthusiastic cheering and shouts. In 
speaking of it the newspaper said, — 

“ The vast concourse rent the air with their snouts.” 

Some years ago the Philadelphia Post published this erratum : “ In our last 
issue a biography of Newton was said to contain this : ‘ Yes, the immoral New- 
ton lived just like other men.’ It should have read ‘the immortal Newton.’ ” 

A New York editor who wrote an obituary on the death of a man of some 
celebrity said, “ He began life as a legal practitioner, but was diverted from it 
by a love of letters.” He did not see the proof, and was confronted the next 
morning by this: “ He began life as a legal politician, but he was diverted from 
it by a love of bitters.” — Philadelphia Times. 

The Women did not Vote for it. — The cavalier treatment which the 
petitioners for woman suffrage have received at the State-House this year is 
directly attributable to the neglect by the women to respond to the invitation 
extended to them last year to express their wishes at the polls. Such a small 
number took the trouble to vote on the question that the Legislature un- 
doubtedly feels fully justified in considering that the women care very little 
about it. The great bulk of the vote of last November favoring woman suffrage 
was cast by men, and if the women had gone to the polls in support of what 
some of them call their “ rights” it would have been carried by a large majority. 
— Boston Commonwealth. 


THIS NUMBER CONTAINS 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX. 


By WILL N. HARBEN, 

COM 


Author of “White Marie,” “Almost Persuaded,” “A 
Mute Confessor,” “The Land of the Changing Sun,” etc. 


ALSO, 

The Washingtons in Official Life, 

By ANNE HOLLINGSWORTH WHARTON. Illustrated. 



MONTHLY MAGAZINE 

CONTENTS ' 


FROM CLUE TO CLIMAX 

Naval Warfare in 1896 
Criminal Jurisprudence 
A Fellow-Feeling ..... 

Shadings (Couplet) ..... 

The Feigning of Death by Animals . 
Youthful Reading of Literary Men . 
The Changeful Skies .... 

The Jar (Poem) ..... 

Woman in Business .... 

The End of a Career .... 

After Seeing a Poor Play . 

Her Happiness (Poem) .... 

Timely ....... 

The Washingtons in Official Life 


Will N. Harben . 737-816 

Owen Hall . . . .817 

/. J. Wistar . . .822 

Edith Brower . . .826 

Grace F. Penny packer . . 837 

James Weir . . . .838 

Edith Dickson . . .845 

Charles C. Abbott . . . 846 

Charles G. D. Roberts. . 849 

Mary E. J ’. Kelley . . 850 

Harry Irving Horton . . 853 

William Trowbridge Lamed 855 
Carlotta Perry . . .858 

H. C. Stickney . . .859 

Amie Hollingsworth Wharton 865 


PRICE TWENTY- FIVE CENTS 

• PUBLISHED BY 

J:B:LIPPINCOTT:C2: PHILADELPHIA: 

LONDON: 10 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 

PARIS: BRENTANO’S, 37 AVENUE DE L’OPERA. 

Copyright, 1896, by J. B. Lippincott Company Enttfied at Philadelphia Post-Office as second-class matter. 





Haviland China 

It is important to buyers that they should be 

informed that the only ware that has always been known 
as Haviland China is marked under each piece : 


H&C° 

On White China. 


On Decorated China. 




zx 


m 


sT 


:****}> 


‘WHO WOULDN’T WANT TO RIDE 

and own so beautiful a wheel as 

“Just so, and when you ride a Rambler you feel 
that no amount of money could have bought a 
better wheel. People of good taste know that.” 
Beautiful illustrated Rambler book, telling all about 
wheels, free at any Rambler agency in the U. S. 

GORMULLY & JEFFERY MFG. CO. 

Chicago. Boston. Washington. New York. Brook- 
lyn. Detroit. Coventry, England. 



“Golly— But That’s Good!” 

It tickles alike the taste of the boys, the girls 
and the grown-up folks. It is nature at her 
best— the best of her herbs, roots, barks and ber- 
ries. Fun, sparkle and good health combined. 

HIRES’ 

Root beet* 

A 25 cent package makes 5 gallons. Sold everywhere. 

The Charles E. Hires Co., Philadelphia. 












It will pay you to investigate 
before purchasing. 


TM 




Ohmer Dust-Proof 
Letter-File Cabinets 

HAVE BEEN IMPROVED 

and placed within the reach of all, 
from the individual of limited means 
to the wealthy corporation, 

without sacrificing anything in 
their appearance or workmanship. 

They are first-class in construction, 
and are guaranteed to please in 
EVERY particular. Write for cata- 
logue and circulars to 

The M. OHMER’S SONS COMPANY, 
First and Main Streets, 

Dayton, O., U.S.A. 











(MARI AN I WINE) 

THE IDEAL FRENCH TONIC. 


WINTER PALACE, 

ST. PETERSBURG, APRIL 17. 
"THE MARSHAL OF THE CHANCEL- 
LERY OF THE IMPERIAL COURT RE- 
QUESTS YOU TO SEND IMMEDIATELY 
TO THE PALACE OF HIS MAJESTY, 
THE EMPEROR, ANOTHER CASE OF 
SIXTY BOTTLES VIN M ARIANI." 

At Druggists A Fancy Grocxrs. Avoid Substitutions. 

Sent free, if this paper Is mentioned, 

Descriptive Book, Portraits and Autographs 
of Celebrities. 

M ARIANI & CO., 

Paris : 41 Boulevard Haussmaaa. 62 West 16th St., Nrw York. 

London : 239 Oxford Street. 



SOLID THROUGH TRAINS BETWEEN 

CINCINNATI, 
TOLEDO ^DETROIT. 

Pullman Vestibuled Trains Between 

CINCINNATI, 

INDIANAPOLIS , 

and OH 1C AGO. 

Through Car Lines from Cincinnati via 
Indianapolis to St. Louis ; also 
Cincinnati via Indianapolis to 
Decatur, Springfield, III., 
and Keokuk. 

WM. M. GREENE, D. G. EDWARDS, 

General Manager, General Pass. Agent, 

CINCINNATI. OHIO. 


* # * * * * $ 

Crippte Creek 

The Santa F6 Route is the most di- 
rect and only through broad-gauge 
line from Chicago and Kansas City 
to the celebrated Cripple Creek gold 
mining district. Luxurious Pull- 
mans, free chair-cars, fastest time, 
and low rates. 

Gold! Gold! 

Address G. T. Nicholson, G. P. A., 
A., T. & S. F. Ry., Monadnock Blk., 
R. 723, Chicago, and ask for free 
copy of profusely illustrated book 
descriptive of Cripple Creek. It is 
well worth reading. 

Sarjta Fe Rout* 

# $ ^ # 


/.i . oL 



o 

>• 


I'g 

3 m 


“o© 



.res while 
^ou Sleep 



Whooping Cough, 
Asthma, Catarrh, 

Valuable booklet free. 

Crou p Vapo-Craolen. Co., 69 Wall St, N. I. 



■or 

m* 


Ivory 


IVORY 

J / V - 

Soap 

Some persons insist on 
having the costliest of 
everything. They do not 
buy Ivory Soap. Those 
who want the best do. 

The Procter & Gamble Co., Cum 


Making 

powder 

Absolute!/ Pure. 

A cream of tartar baking powder. High- 
est of all in leavening strength . — Latest 
United States Government Food Report. 

Royal Baking Powder Co., New York. 


No Guesswork 
About Columbias 

The Department of 
Tests of the Pope 
Manufacturing Com- 
pany, with its Emery 
Testing Machine of 
100,000 lbs. capacity, 
has no superior, even 
among the Govern- 
ment testing stations. 

Expert Engineers and Metallurgists watch 
everything that enters into Columbia con- 
struction. There are no untried devices in 
the Columbia. That is why & & & & & 

Columbia Bicycles 

are Standard of the World 


Art Catalogue 
fifty pages ft " 
two 2-cent*“ 
stamps. 


OPE MFG. CO. 

Hartford, Conn. 


I™ 1 f A |1 I H C* ma r% m A new accessory to the toilet— softens the skin, beautifies the 

* " * " ** 1 ■ B — vrCfllll W I complexion. Evanola can be used externallv and internallv 







































. 


* 













































< 






L. 




































■ 


' 













































































































































I 


' 






















































- 

' 






































' 








































* 











B 9 Sx ; ■ 






























■ ■- • , ■ ■ ■ 

v 

s 

. 












































